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RAHAM 


LN* 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 
HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


"The  True  Story  of  a  Great  Life." 


"  Mr.  LINCOLN'S  whole  career  from  earliest  childhood  is  full 
of  instruction  and  romantic  interest.  ...  It  is  so  out  of  the  common, 
so  picturesque,  so  unlike  anything  possible  anywhere  within  the  bound- 
aries of  civilization,  except  in  some  portions  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley  seventy  years  ago,  that  to  multitudes  the  story  must  seem  more 
a  romance  than  reality.  And  if  in  that  earlier  period,  from  childhood 
nearly  to  middle  age,  the  interest  in  it  is  captivating  and  intense,  such 
a  career  becomes  in  its  final  outgrowth,  in  the  ripe  fruitage  of  such 
seed,  hardly  less  than  marvelous. 

"  To  the  earlier  life  of  Lincoln  Mr.  Stoddard  devotes  about  200  of 
his  500  pages.  Of  those  years  hidden  in  the  obscurity  of  humble 
parentage,  the  hard  and  unnoted  struggle  with  poverty,  the  gloom  of 
the  uneventful  solitude  of  the  woods  and  prairie,  little  more,  probably, 
if  anything,  will  ever  be  known  than  Mr.  Stoddard  has  gathered. 
The  wonder  is  that  he  has  gathered  so  much,  and  it  is  not  one  of  the 
least  merits  of  his  book  that  he  has  told  it  so  well. 

"  It  is  as  entertaining  as  any  story  of  hardy  and  adventurous  life  in 
a  new  country.  So  picturesque  is  it  that  one  can  hardly  avoid  the  reflec- 
tion while  reading  that  if  put  into  the  hands  of  the  dime-novel  reader 
even  he  would  be  moved  to  an  excitement  and  incitement  quite  as  pleas- 
ant and  almost  as  intense  as  that  which  his  darkened  intelligence  and 
perverted  taste  receive  from  the  unwholesome  fiction  his  mind  is  accus- 
tomed to  feed  on.  And  perhaps  no  better  test  than  this  could  be 
applied  to  a  story  of  actual  frontier-life  more  than  half  a  century  ago, 
some  survival  of  which  may  yet  be  found  in  the  Territories  of  the  far 
West.  That  a  youth  brought  up  amid  such  surroundings  should 
develop  a  character  that  should  lead  him  to  be  the  chosen  ruler  of  a 

5reat  nation  is  a  marvel  the  dullest  imagination  can  apprehend.  .  .  . 
t  is  not  invidious  to  say  that  as  yet  no  other  that  has  been  written 
can  be  compared  to  this,  were  it  only  because  no  other  biographer  has 
seen  Mr.  Lincoln  so  near  and  so  completely.  There  is  not  much  in 
the  book  of  politics,  in  the  party  sense,  and  still  less  of  the  pomp  and 
circumstance  of  war,  of  campaigns,  and  of  battles,  but  of  what  the 
war  meant ;  of  what  was  aimed  at  on  one  side  and  on  the  other  was 
to  be  prevented ;  of  what  was  at  stake  for  the  American  people,  for 
the  cause  of  popular  government,  and  for  mankind — in  all  this  we  are 
led  to  see  what  Mr.  Lincoln  saw,  and  what  impartial  history  will  have 
to  tell  when  it  turns  back  to  that  period  after  its  living  representatives 
have  passed  away." — New  York  Times. 

"  Has  strong  claims  upon  the  interest  and  attention  of  every 
American.  ...  A  graphic  and  entertaining  biography,  as  rich  in 
incident  as  any  romance,  and  sparkling  with  wise  wit  and  racy  anec- 
dote. It  comprises  a  large  mass  of  valuable  and  judiciously  epitomized 
information.  ...  A  popular  and  strictly  personal  biography,  it  is  so 
simply  and  tersely  written  as  to  be  adapted  to  readers  of  every  age 
and  degree  of  intelligence.  ...  If  any  considerable  portion  of  the 
youth  of  America  can  be  persuaded  to  make  themselves  familiar  with 
his  iife,  .  ,  .  as  delineated  by  Mr.  Stoddard's  suggestive  biography,  it 
will  be  better  for  them  and  the  republic." — Harper's  Monthly. 

B^-  POSTPAID  TO  ANY  ADDRESS  on  receipt  of  price,  or  sent 
C.  O.  D.  with  privilege  to  open  and  examine.  See  over. 

FORDS,  HOWARD,  &   HULBERT, 

27  Park  Place,  New  York. 


*'  Decidedly  the  best  life  of  Lincoln  ever  written." 


"  He  has  succeeded  so  well  that  this  lif  e 
not  only  supersedes,  in  its  main  purpose, 
any  that  has  preceded  it,  but  is  not  likely 
to  be  displaced  by  any  that  may  follow. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Stoddard's  relations  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln were  exceptional.  .  .  If  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  born  to  be  written  about,  Mr.  Stoddard 
was,  so  to  speak,  born  to  write  about  him. 
.  .  .  The  book  is  singularly  honest  and 
candid.  ...  To  the  younger  readers  who 
seek  to  know  something  more  of  the  Re- 
bellion than  its  four  years  of  battles,  of 
suffering,  of  sorrow,  and  of  waste,  Mr. 
Stoddard's  book  will  bring  new  light." — 
The  Critic,  New  York. 

"Such  a  life  of  Lincoln  has  not  before 
been  written.  His  individuality  is  hap- 
pily portrayed  by  the  author." — New  York 
School  Journal. 

"  Of  gpodly  proportions,  of  typograph- 
ical merit,  and  of  surprising  excellence, 
whether  considered  as  a  literary  produc- 
tion, in  the  manner  of  the  narrative  or  in 
philosophical  presentation  of  character. 
...  Of  permanent  value  and  .  .  .  will  be 
a  prize  to  the  future  historian." — Roches- 
ter Herald. 

"  Mr.  Stoddard  has  succeeded  in  show- 
ing us  Lincoln  the  man,  if  not  Lincoln  the 
statesman,  and  in  this  lies  the  distinctive 
merit  of  the  work.  ...  In  the  selection  of 
anecdotes  Mr.  Stoddard  has  been  judicious, 
and  he  has  shown  commendable  industry 
in  collecting  and  sifting  his  facts." — New 
York  Herald. 

"American  readers  will  welcome  a 
painstaking,  sober,  conscientious  study  of 
the  man  as  he  was  estimated  by  those  who 
knew  him  well  before  events  had  clothed 
him  with  national  importance  and  tragical 
dignity.  The  author  has  some  special 
qualifications  for  his  task." — New  York 
Sun. 

"  His  account  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  youth  is 
very  striking,  and  he  gives  a  minute  and 
interesting  narrative  of  the  slow  and  care- 
ful steps  by  which  he  fitted  himself  for 
political  life.  He  brings  out  distinctly  Mr. 
Lincoln's  sagacity  and  patience  in  critical 
periods  of  great  enterprises ;  he  explains 
admirably  his  intimate  acquaintance  with 
the  popular  sentiment  and  disposition,  and 
shows  what  shrewd  use  was  made  of  that 
knowledge;  and  he  sets  in  strong  light  the 
President's  patriotism,  iinselfisbness,  ten- 
derness, and  religious  spirit." — New  York 
Tribune. 

"  Well  fitted  by  his  personal  acquaint- 
ance and  sympathy  with  his  subject,  the 
mass  of  material  at  his  disposal,  and  a  lit- 
erary style  incisive,  lucid,  and  comprehen- 
sive. Almost  in  spite  of  himself,  the 
record — in  which  Mr.  Stoddard  has  traced 
the  evolution  of  Lincoln's  remarkable 
though  essentially  American  character, 
describing  in  detail  the  progression  of  his 
career  from  stage  to  stage  between  a 
backwoods  cabin  and  the  White  House-^- 
becomes  a  study  of  the  political  and  mili- 
tary history  of  Lincoln's  tune.  Remark- 
ably complete,  accurate,  and  well  writ- 
ten."— New  York  World. 


"...  We  at  once  were  fascinated.  Has 
in  it  elements  that  few  biographies  pos- 
sess, and  an  interest  that  few  romances 
can  surpass." — American  Reformer. 

"  Presents  all  the  contrasts  of  a  vivid  and 
almost  incredible  novel."— N.  Y.  Church 
Union. 

"  Far  superior  to  any  single  attempt  that 
has  yet  appeared.  There  is  a  vivid  fresh- 
ness—  a  strange  fascination — about  the 
narrative  which  enchains  the  reader's  at- 
tention from  beginning  to  end.  There  is 
nothing  in  romance  more  deeply  interest- 
ing to  thoughtful  Americans  than  this 
'true  story  of  a  great  life-1  and  it  will 
doubtless  take  permanent  rank  hereafter 
as  the  standard  biography  of  the  illustrious 
patriot,  liberator,  and  martyr." — Philadel- 
phia Lutheran  Observer. 

"  Admirably  has  Mr.  Stoddard  succeeded 
in  the  accomplishment  of  his  designed  pur- 
pose. Whether  for  present  enjoyment  or 
as  a  work  of  reference  for  its  wealth  of 
details,  will  be  acceptable  everywhere." — 
New  York  Star. 

"Abounds  in  interesting  and  character- 
istic incidents  pleasantly  told,  and  every 
page  of  the  volume  has  its  special  bright- 
ness. The  work  will  be  found  entirely 
satisfactory  and  vastly  popular."  — In- 
terior, Chicago. 

"  Contains  much  new  and  valuable  infor- 
mation in  regard  to  Lincoln's  life  and 
pers9nal  character— from  it  we  get  a  defi- 
nite impression  of  lif  eat  the  White  House 
during  the  first  four  years  of  the  war,  as 
well  as  some  idea  of  Executive  methods 
during  those  troublous  times.  The  author 
has  been  very  judicious  in  the  selection  of 
anecdotes  and  has  compressed  within 
reasonable  limits  the  great  mass  of  ma- 
terial at  his  command.  His  book  is  very 
readable  and  deserving  a  wide  circula- 
tion."— Evening  Journal,  Chicago. 

"Mr.  Stoddard's  is  the  best  because  it 
faithfully  relates  the  facts  and  attempts 
no  fulsome  eulogies.  Abounds  in  senti- 
ment so  happily  blended  with  history  as 
to  make  it  as  attractive  as  any  romance. 
There  is  no  better  book  to  place  in  the 
hands  of  boys  and  girls."— Chicago  Inter- 
Ocean. 

"  From  it  may  be  gathered  a  clearer  and. 
in  general,  a  more  just  appreciation  of 
what  the  man  Abraham  Lincoln  was  and 
how  he  became  so,  otherwise  than  he  was 
born  so,  than  has  ever  been  given  to  the 
public  before." — Chicago  Times. 

"  It  is  in  truth  the  story  of  Abraham 
Lincoln's  life,  rather  than  his  mere  bio- 
graphy. Mr.  Stoddard  has  told  his '  story ' 
in  the  most  entertaining  way.  It  is  a  book 
to  lie  on  the  family  table  and  to  be  often 
and  enjoyably  perused."— Christian  Stan- 
dard, Chicago. 

'•  As  a  popular  presentment  of  the  career 
of  Lincoln,  and  for  family  reading,  it  is 
one  of  the  most  satisfactory  lives  that  has 
appeared."— Christian  Union,  N.  Y. 


"Careful  and  exact  in  detail,  where  details  are  accessible  ;  expressing  at  every 
point  a  profound  admiration,  nay  reverence,  for  the  individuality  of  its  subject,  yet 
glossing  over  no  defect,  no  uncouthness  of  manner,  no  fault  of  temper  ;  keeping  always 
to  the  true  historical  perspective  and  setting  forth  the  person  of  Lincoln  in  high  relief 
against  the  dark  background  of  the  times ;  summing  up  the  evolution  of  political 
parties,  the  history  of  a  military  campaign,  in  a  page  or  a  paragraph  ;  written  in 
terse,  clear-cut  English ;  and  intensely  readable  from  beginning  to  end. — this,  in  our 
opinion,  approaches  closely  to  the  ideal  popular  biography  " — Literary  World,  Boston. 

N.  B.— Many  intelligent  persons  who  appreciate  this  book  are  successfully 
taking  orders  for  it. 


Front  Photograph  by  Brady,  Washington^  1865. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN; 


THE  TRUE  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  LIFE. 


SHOWING    THE   INNER    GROWTH,    SPECIAL    TRAINING,    AND  PECULIAR 
FITNESS  OF  THE  MAN  FOR  HIS  WORK. 


BY   WILLIAM    O.  STODDARD, 

ONE  OF  PRESIDENT  LINCOLN'S  SECRETARIES   DURING  THE  WAR  OF  THE 

REBELLION. 


KUustratfons. 


"The  public  life  of  Hampden  ....  resembles  a  regular  drama  which 
can  be  criticised  as  a  whole,  and  every  scene  of  which  is  to  be  viewed  in  connection 
with  the  main  action." — MACAULAY'S  Essay  on  Pitt. 


NEW   YORK: 

FORDS,  HOWARD,  &  HULBERT, 

1885. 


COPYRIGHT,  1884,  BT 
FOKDS,  HOWARD,  &  HtJLBERT. 


PREFACE. 


A  STRICTLY  personal  life  of  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  has  long  been 
regarded  by  many  as  a  literary  necessity. 

There  can  be  no  question  but  that  the  popular  idea  of  Mr. 
LINCOLN'S  character  is  vague,  fragmentary,  and  incomplete. 
His  origin,  growth,  and  development,  his  education  and  his  ser- 
vices, rightly  presented  and  understood,  offer  one  of  the  noblest 
lessons  to  be  found  in  the  world's  history.  To  present  such  a 
biography  is  the  single  aim  of  this  book.  It  is  a  record  of 
political  and  military  events  only  as  these  in  some  manner  be- 
came a  part  of,  or  set  forth,  or  illustrated  the  character  and 
services  of  the  great  President.  The  writer  knew  Mr.  LIN- 
COLN well,  and  had  many  opportunities  of  preparation  for  such 
a  work  as  this.  These  were  obtained  during  a  residence  of 
several  years,  before  the  war,  in  Mr.  LINCOLN'S  own  district  in 
Illinois,  and  as  one  of  his  assistant  private  secretaries  at  Wash- 
ington, from  the  beginning  of  his  administration,  in  1861,  to 
about  the  end  of  September,  1864.  Every  effort  possible  has 
been  made  to  put  away  partisan  feeling  and  the  blindnesses 
of  personal  affection,  and  to  produce  and  present  a  faithful 
portrait  of  the  man  as  he  was. 

The  mass  of  material  offering  required  the  exclusion  of  much 
that  was  interesting  but  not  necessary,  and  the  most  rigid  con- 
densation, in  order  to  keep  the  book  within  reasonable  limits 
as  to  size.  Much  will  be  found  that  is  not  contained  in  any 
other  biography  of  Mr.  LINCOLN,  but  nothing  which  is  not  be- 
lieved to  be  entirely  trustworthy.  In  the  records  of  his  earlier 
lif  e,  the  work  of  Messrs.  WARD  H.  LAMON  and  WILLIAM  H. 


4  PEEFACE. 

HERNDON  has  been  trusted  wherever  the  testimonies  of  other 
writers  have  seemed  to  clash  with  it. 

No  apology  is  made  for  not  inserting  at  any  point  brief 
biographies  of  other  distinguished  men  and  collateral  accounts 
of  important  matters  of  history,  even  though  they  may  have  a 
distinct  relation  to  Mr.  LINCOLN'S  labors  and  the  great  events  of 
his  day.  It  is  proper,  however,  to  express  the  author's  gratifi- 
cation at  knowing  that  a  work  is  now  preparing,  by  his  former 
office-associates,  Messrs.  JOHN  G.  NICOLAY  and  JOHN  HAT, 
which  is  to  be  an  exhaustive  historical  record  of  "  the  life  and 
times"  of  Mr.  LINCOLN.  He  does  not  even  enter  the  field  they 
have  preempted,  but  is  glad  that  so  good  a  work  is  in  such 
capable  and  devoted  hands  as  theirs. 

The  time  is  fully  ripe  for  the  study  of  Mr.  LINCOLN'S  individu- 
ality. This  book  is  simply  intended  to  set  that  forth  in  such  a 
form  that  it  can  be  studied,  and  in  the  hope  that  a  new  genera- 
tion of  Americans  may  learn  to  love  and  honor  and  imitate  a 
man  who  seems  to  have  been  in  himself  an  embodiment  and 
personification  of  all  that  is  best  in  American  national  life. 

W.  O.  S. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PORTRAIT  OF  LINCOLN, Frontispiece. 

From  Photograph  by  Brady,  Washington,  1865. 

THE  LINCOLN  HOMESTEAD, 20 

Where  Abe  Spent  his  First  Seven  Years,  Hardin  County,  Kentucky. 

PORTRAIT  OF  LINCOLN,         .       .       .       .       .       .       .       .145 

Just  after  his  Nomination  in  1860.   From  Photograph  taken  in  Springfield,  111. 

LIFE-MASK  OF  LINCOLN, .       .  201 

Taken  by  the  Sculptor  YOKES,  in  Chicago,  1860. 

A  COUNCIL  OF  WAR, 297 

On  the  U.  S.  War  Steamer  Miami,  in  1862;  Lincoln,  Stanton,  Chase, 
and  Gen.  Viele.  Drawn  by  C.  S.  RKINHART. 

MR.  LINCOLN'S  WORK-ROOM, 343 

His  private  office  in  the  White  House,  where  he  studied,  wrote,  received  his 
Cabinet,  etc.  Drawn  by  BENJ.  LANDER,  after  original  sketch  by  F.  B.  CAR- 
PENTER, whose  painting  of  the  "  Emancipation  Proclamation"  has  made  the 
historic  old  work-table  familiar. 

THE  GETTYSBURG  SPEECH, 414 

Fac-simile  of  Mr.  LINCOLN'S  manuscript  of  the  speech,  copied  out  for 
engraving,  after  its  delivery. 

"THE  PRESIDENT'S  LAST,  SHORTEST,  AND  BEST  SPEECH,"      .  408 

Fac-simile  of  a  newspaper  paragraph,  written  out  by  Mr.  LINCOLN. 

LINCOLN  AND  SUMNER  IN  RICHMOND, 452 

Saluted  by  a  Detachment  of  Gen.  Weitzel's  Colored  Troops  passing  to 
occupy  Garrison  Quarters. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

A  CHAOTIC  BEGINNING, 13 

The  Birthplace— The  Family— The  Homestead— 1809  to  1816. 

CHAPTER  II. 
HAPHAZARD  MIGRATION, 17 

Tom  Lincoln's  Venture— Little  Abe— The  Trip  through  the  Woods— From  one 
Hut  to  another— 1816. 

CHAPTER  HI. 
CHILD-LIFE  IN  THE  WILDERNESS, 24 

Pole-shelter— Log  Cabin  and  Clearing— Pestilence  and  Suffering— A  Forest 
Funeral— 1818. 

CHAPTER  IV. 
A  NEW  ELEMENT, 31 

Utter  Desolation— Arrival  of  a  Good  Angel— A  Ray  of  Civilization— 1819. 

CHAPTER  V. 
A  GENUINE  START, 35 

Growth— Schooling— Beginnings  of  Human  Society  in  the  Backwoods. 

CHAPTER  VI. 
BORROWED  TREASURES, 40 

The  Art  of  Story-Telling— The  Wonders  in  Books— The  Uses  of  Written 
Words. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
FRONTIER  TRAINING, 47 

Oratorical  Beginnings  -Frontier  Politics— Hiring  Out— A  Wedding  and  a  Fu- 
neral— Studies  among  Plain  People — A  Glimpse  into  Law. 


6  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  Vin. 

PAGE 

BOY-OF-ALL-WORK, 53 

Toil,  Fun  and  Frolic — Books  and  Speaking  Matches — A  Severe  Lesson  in 
Caste — Practical  Teachings  on  Temperance — 1885. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
THE  FLATBOAT, 60 

A  Trading  Voyage— Life  in  the  Southern  States— First  View  of  Human 
Slavery— 1828. 

CHAPTER  X. 
"  OF  ILLINOIS," 65 

Another  Migration— Of  full  Age  and  Free— Farmhand  and  Flatboatman— 
More  Southern  Studies— 1830. 

CHAPTER  XI. 
A  STEP  UPWARD, 73 

Stranded  in  New  Salem— First  Public  Employment— Miller,  Clerk,  and  Peace- 
keeper—A Wrestling  Match— 1831. 

CHAPTER  XH. 
THE  BLACKHAWK  WAR, 81 

Lincoln  a  Volunteer— Army  discipline— Captain  Lincoln  under  Punishment- 
Going  to  a  New  School — Regulars  and  Volunteers — 1838. 

CHAPTER  XIH. 
POLITICS,       ..." 90 

Lincoln  a  Candidate— Stumping  the  District— Defeat— The  Credit  System- 
Lincoln  a  Merchant. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
FIRST  LOVE, 99- 

A  True  Romance— Elected  to  the  State  Legislature— A  New  Suit— Free 
Thinking. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
IN  THE  LEGISLATURE, 105 

Practical  Politics— Lessons  in  Public  Finance— Blowing  Bubbles— A  Great 
Darkness— 1834-86. 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
BUBBLE  LEGISLATION, Ill 

An  Episode— The  Lightning-rod— The  Long  Nine— State  Improvements— 
Anti-Slavery  Declarations— 1836. 


CONTENTS.  7 

CHAPTEE  XVH. 

PAGE 

THE  YOUNG  LAWYER, 118 

Admitted  to  the  Bar— Honest  Poverty— The  Panic  of  1887— Politics  again- 
Matrimonial  Tendencies— Another  Darkness. 

CHAPTER   XVIII. 
MANHOOD, 127 

An  Honest  Lawyer— A  Storm— The  Henry  Clay  Campaign— The  Old  Cabin- 
Partnerships— Coarse  and  Fine— Elected  Congressman— The  Mexican  War- 
President  Making— The  Pro-Slavery  Formula— Southern  Friendships. 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
THE  COMING  CONFLICT, 138 

Office  Refused— The  Missouri  Compromise— A  Sure  Prophecy— Inner  Life- 
Ripening— Death  of  Tom  Lincoln— A  Written  Confession  of  Faith. 

CHAPTER  XX. 
A  GREAT  AWAKENING, 145 

Colonization— The  Kansas-Nebraska  Act— The  Barriers  Broken  Down— Lin- 
coln's First  Great  Speech— Stephen  A.  Douglas— Growth  of  a  New  Party— Dis- 
covering a  Leader— An  Oratorical  Match. 

CHAPTER  XXI. 
THE  NEW  PARTY,         .       . 154 

Bleeding  Kansas— A  Watchful  Friend— Trapping  a  Trapper— The  Blooming- 
ton  Convention— General  Apathy— The  Voice  of  Faith. 

CHAPTER  XXII. 
THE  COMING  MAN, 159 

The  Fr6mont  Campaign— Lincoln  f  or  Vice-President— The  Southern  Threat- 
Days  of  Preparation— Buchanan's  Term— One  Story  Higher— A  Murder  Case. 

CHAPTER  XXIH. 
POLITICAL  PROPHECY, 167 

A  Rejected  Leader— A  Great  Convention— An  Historical  Speech— Nominated 
for  United  States  Senator— The  Joint  Debates  with  Douglas— The  Splitting  of 
the  Democratic  Party — Beginnings  of  a  Presidential  Nomination — Spring  1858 
to  Spring  1859. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 
THE  RISING  TIDE, 177 

National  Fame— The  Cooper  Institute  Speech— Sectionalism— Illinois  State 
Convention  at  Decatur— The  Rail-splitter— The  Republican  National  Convention 
at  Chicago— The  Presidential  Nomination— 1859. 


CONTENTS, 
i 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

PAGE 

ELECTED  PRESIDENT,    .       .       .       .       .       .       -  .  isft 

The  Great  Canvass  of  1860— The  Critical  Election— Southern  Threats  of  Civil 
War— Office-seekers  Early— A  Wise  Decision— Cabinet-making— Preparing  for 
the  Trouble  to  Come— A  Nation  without  a  Ruler. 

•i 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 
CASUS  BELLI, 190 

Secession  Activities— Lincoln's  Policy— In  a  Trying  Position— South  Carolina 
Takes  the  Lead— The  Confederate  States  of  America— Traitors  in  Congress- 
Capture  of  United  States  Forts  and  Forces— A  Campaign  of  Statesmanship- 
Vain  Premonitions— A  Last  Meeting. 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 
PRESIDENT, 201 

Speaking  to  the  Nation— Diplomacy— Journey  to  Washington— In  the  Ene- 
my's Country— The  District  of  Columbia  Militia— The  Flood  of  Office-seekers— 
The  Inauguration— The  Address— The  True  Meaning  of  Secession— March,  1861. 


CHAPTER  XXVHI. 
WAR, 213 

The  New  Era— Unification  of  the  South— Free  Speech— Copperheads— The 
Cabinet— The  White  House— Confederate  Ambassadors— Traitors  in  Office — 
The  Border  States— The  Sumpter  Gun— The  President's  Call  to  Arms— April, 
1861. 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 
THE  GREAT  UPRISING, 227 

A  Steady  Hand— The  Rebellion  Extending— The  Loyal  North— The  Baltimore 
Mob— Rebellion  in  Maryland— Confederate  Hopes  and  Failures— Peril  of  Wash- 
ington—Arrival of  Troops  from  the  North— The  Gateway  to  the  North— Arrival 
of  the  New  York  Seventh— Capture  of  Baltimore— Case  of  Col.  Robert  E.  Lee- 
Secession  of  Virginia—  Call  for  Three  Years'  Volunteers— Crushing  of  Secession 
in  Maryland. 

CHAPTER  XXX. 
OVER  THE  LONG  BRIDGE, 239 

Respect  for  State  Rights— Secession  of  Virginia— Union  Advance  across  the 
Potomac— Death  of  Ellsworth— The  Beginning  in  West  Virginia— The  Old  Flag 
disappears  from  the  South— White  House  Life— War-time  Illusions— Studies  of 
Future  Battle-grounds— A  Funeral  in  the  East  Room. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 

PAGE 

THE  EUROPEAN  QUESTION, 248 

The  Secretary  of  State— England  and  France— Privateers  and  Piracy— The 
New  Navy— Whaling  Schooners  as  War  Vessels. 


CHAPTER   XXXII. 
BULL  RUN, 253 

Checker-board  Campaign  Plans— On  to  Richmond— The  Two  Armies— Dis- 
solved Militia— Congressional  Legislation  under  Sudden  Pressure— The  Presi- 
dent's Message — Five  Hundred  Thousand  Men. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 
THE  BLOCKADE, 261 

Recognition— Accepting  the  Situation— The  Neutrality  Mask— Rejected  In- 
formation—War Correspondence  not  History— The  Fetters  of  Etiquette  not 
Worn. 

CHAPTER  XXXIV. 
WORK  WITH  RAW  MATERIALS, 267 

The  New  Army — Hunting  for  Brigadiers — Finances — Preparations  of  the 
South— Old  Guns  and  New— Presidential  Target  Practice— Selection  of  General 
McClellan. 

CHAPTER  XXXV. 
NEW  NATIONAL  LIFE, 275 

A  Shattered  Idol— A  New  State— Contraband  of  War— Transitions  and  Pro- 
cesses—Lincoln a  Dictator— The  Law  of  Revolution. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 
PRESIDENT  AND  GENERAL, 281 

The  Army  of  the  Potomac— Newspaper  Acrobats— The  President's  Mail- 
Work  of  the  Private  Secretaries — Army  Organization — An  Advance  which  was 
not  Made— Off ensive  and  Defensive  War. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 
DICTATOR  AND  CONGRESS, 289 

The  Legislative  Branch— The  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War— Useful 
Interference — Councils  and  Umpires— Political  Complications  Beginning— Ci- 
vilian and  Soldier. 


10  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XXX  VI 1 1. 

PAGE 

THE  PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN, 297 

Monitor  and  Merrimac— The  Story  of  a  Great  Invention— Waiting  before 
Yorktown— Civil  Supremacy  in  Danger— A  Retreat  in  Good  Order— A  Perilous 
Dilemma— The  Army  of  Virginia— Gen.  Pope's  Campaign— A  New  Political 
Party— One  Army  Swallowed  by  Another. 

CHAPTER  XXXTX 
MILITARY  POLITICS, .  307 

Reconstruction— Jarring  Counsels— Gen.  John  C.  Fr6mont— A  Premature 
Proclamation— A  Modification— Another  Subordinate  laying  down  the  Law  to 
the  President— A  New  Secretary  of  War— A  Human  Library. 

CHAPTER  XL. 
DRAWN  BATTLES, 321 

The  Fighting  under  Pope— News  from  the  Army— The  Changes  of  Comman- 
ders—Lee in  Maryland— The  Antietam— Exhausted  Patience— Removal  of  Mc- 
Clellan— A  Great  Misunderstanding. 

CHAPTER  XLL 
EMANCIPATION, 328 

The  War-Power  and  the  Constitution— A  Struggle  of  Life  and  Death— The 
Hour  and  the  Man — The  Proclamation — Waiting  for  the  Victory — An  Unpre- 
pared People — Suspension  of  the  Writ  of  Habeas  Corpus— Visiting  the  Army— 
The  Reply  of  the  Opposition. 

CHAPTER  "XTJT 
THE  HARDEST  BLOW, 343 

Home-Life  in  the  White  House— Death  of  Little  Willie— Proclamation  of 
Thanksgiving  and  Prayer— Circular  Letter  to  the  Army  on  Sabbath-keeping— 
Spiritual  Growth. 

CHAPTER  XTJTL 
THE  TRENT  AFFAIR, 349 

Two  Frontier  Posts— Western  Successes— A  Slice  at  a  Time— Trouble  with 
England— Shortsighted  Patriotism— A  Message  to  the  English  People— Captain 
Wilkes  Promoted— Border  State  Unionism. 

CHAPTER  XLIV. 
A  DARK  WINTER 356 

Fredericksburg — A  Lost  Opportunity — Burnside  and  Hooker — The  Burdens 
of  a  Military  Establishment— Congressional  Counselors— The  Heart  of  the  Na- 
tion—An Extraordinary  Ambassador— The  Birth  of  the  Union  League. 


CONTENTS.  11 

CHAPTEE  XLV. 

PAGE 

EXECUTION, 365 

Efforts  for  Compensation  to  Owners  of  Slaves— Dreams  of  Colonization— 
The  Future  of  the  African  in  America— The  Final  Proclamation— The  Slave- 
Owner  a  Southern  Sympathizer. 

CHAPTER  XLVI. 
DARK  DAYS, 371 

A  Tax  Payable  in  Men— The  New  Financial  System— The  States  and  the  Na- 
tion—Reconstruction Begun— A  Flood  of  Calumny— Freedom  of  Speech  and  of 
the  Press— A  Sarcastic  Present  to  the  Confederacy— Opposition  Taking  Form 
at  the  North. 

CHAPTER  XLVH. 
NIGHT 382 

Preparing  for  a  Great  Struggle— Popular  Discontent— Murmurs  of  Sedition- 
European  Hostilities— Chancellorsville— Bitter  Hours  for  the  President— Dark- 
ness at  the  .South — Statesmen  under  an  Hallucination — The  Second  Invasion  of 
the  North— Hooker  Succeeded  by  Meade. 

CHAPTER   XLVHI. 
THE  TURNING  POINT, .       .392 

The  Eve  of  Battle— The  Surrender  of  Vicksburg— The  Mississippi  River  set 
Free— The  Three  Days'  Fight  at  Gettysburg— Lee's  Retreat^-The  Situation 
Changed— The  Draft  Riots— The  New  York  Mob— The  President's  Reply  to  the 
Unpatriotic  Elements. 

CHAPTER  XLIX. 
THORNS, 402 

Poisoned  Arrows — The  Ways  of  a  Workingman — Western  Bickerings — An 
Extraordinary  Congress— Presenting  the  President's  Case— Preparing  the  Po- 
litical Future— Visitors  at  the  White  House— Wearing  Away— Unconditional 
Unionism  Portrayed— Voices  of  Good-will  from  Europe— The  Gettysburg  Speech. 

CHAPTER  L. 
THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END,  .......      416 

Keeping  Good  Workmen — Absence  of  Favoritism — A  Political  Revolution- 
A  National  Prayer-Meeting — The  Coming  General — Helpless  Intrigues. 

CHAPTER  LI. 
THE  SECOND  NOMINATION, 423 

Lieutenant-General  Grant— The  First  Great  Relief— Dealing  with  Guerillas- 
Condensation  of  the  Confederacy— The  Double  National  Convention— The  Ad- 
ministration formally  Approved. 


12  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  LII. 

PAGE 

ON  TRIAL, 433 

The  Campaign  of  Calumny— The  Reconstruction  Proclamation— Traps  which 
Captured  Nothing— Skirmishing  Diplomacy— The  Blunders  of  the  Opposition— 
A  Union  General  in  Bad  Company. 

CHAPTER  LIII. 
THE  NATION'S  VERDICT,       .       . 440 

The  Rebellion  Bleeding  to  Death— Half  a  Million  More— The  Results  of  the 
Election— Sherman's  March  to  the  Sea— The  Last  Great  Battle  in  the  West- 
Changes  in  the  Cabinet— Grant  on  "  Executive  Interference." 

CHAPTER  LIV. 
A  VALEDICTORY, 445 

Putting  Emancipation  into  the  Constitution— Sherman  in  South  Carolina— 
The  Peace  Conference  in  Hampton  Roads— Useless  Bloodshed— The  Second  In- 
augural. 

CHAPTER   LV. 
AT  LAST, 452 

A  Proclamation  of  Pardon— Going  to  the  Army — The  Death-Struggle  of  the 
Rebellion — Hemmed  in  by  the  Hunters — The  President  in  Richmond — Surrend- 
ers of  Lee  and  Johnson— Cessation  of  the  Civil  War. 

CHAPTER  LVI. 
PEACE, 457 

A  Rejoicing  People— Vanity  and  Revenge  conspire  to  Commit  Murder— The 
Assassination— The  Mourning  of  a  Mighty  Multitude— Voices  from  Distant 
Lands— The  Teachings  of  a  Great  Life. 


APPENDIX. 


LINCOLN'S  SPEECH, 465 

At  Springfield,  HI.,  June  17, 1858  (Ch.  TYTTT.). 

LINCOLN'S  SPEECH, 473 

At  Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  February,  1860  (Ch.  XXTV.). 

LINCOLN'S  LETTER,        .       .       . 493 

To  Unconditional  Union  Men,  April,  1864  (Ch.  XLIX.). 

LINCOLN'S  LETTER 498 

To  Governor  Bramlette  of  Kentucky,  Washington,  April  4, 1864. 

TRIBUTE  OF  LONDON  "PUNCH"  to  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,      .       .  500 

After  his  assassination,  May,  1865. 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK  I. 

A  CHAOTIC  BEGINNING. 
The  Birthplace— The  Family— The  Homestead— 1809  to  1816. 

"  THAT'S  the  place,  Abe.     You  was  born  thar." 

"  'Tain't  much  of  a  place  to  be  born  in.  It's  a  heap  meaner'n 
the  place  we're  a-livin'  in  now." 

A  man  of  little  over  the  middle  height,  broad-shouldered, 
powerfully  built,  and  somewhat  rough-looking,  leaned  upon  a 
long  rifle  and  gazed  at  a  forlorn  log-house,  not  far  from  the 
roadside,  in  a  wretched,  ill-tended  corn-field.  At  his  side  was 
a  slim,  overgrown  boy  of  seven  years,  who  might  easily  have 
passed  for  three  years  older.  The  growth  which  had  come  to 
him  so  fast  was  indicated  not  only  by  his  size,  but  by  the 
queer,  thoughtful  expression  of  his  strongly  marked,  sunburned 
face.  It  was  full  of  boyish  fun,  to  recklessness ;  and  yet  it 
wore  an  unchildlike  sadness  also,  as  if  the  kind  of  human  life 
into  which  he  had  been  born  were  already  teaching  him  its  les- 
sons and  leaving  upon  him  its  forever  indelible  marks. 

"  They  call  it  Eock  Spring  Farm,"  remarked  his  father. 

"  Do  they  ?  Wall,  I  remember  the  spring  well  enough,  and 
the  rocks  too ;  but,  pop,  whar's  the  farm  ?" 

"  All  around,  hereaway.  It  was  the  first  piece  of  land  I  ever 
owned,  sech  as  it  was.  I  didn't  own  it  very  much,  nuther." 

He  did  not  look  like  a  man  who  had  ever  owned  much  of 
land  or  of  anything  else.  He  was  barefooted,  and  his  patched 
homespun  trowsers  barely  reached  his  ankles :  but  that  was 


14  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

more  than  could  be  said  of  Abe's.  On  his  head,  too,  was  a 
coonskin  cap,  while  his  odd-looking  son  wore  nothing  above 
his  uncombed  shock  of  dark  hair.  A  greasy  buckskin  shirt 
completed  the  outer  garments  of  Tom  Lincoln,  with  a  powder- 
horn  and  bullet-pouch  slung  over  his  shoulders  in  lieu  of  all 
ornament.  His  leathern  waist-belt  marked  yet  one  more  dif- 
ference in  the  apparel  of  the  two,  as  Abe's  left  shoulder  was 
crossed  by  the  one  suspender  with  which  his  trowsers  were  tied 
up,  and  it  met  no  buttons  at  its  lower  ends. 

"Pop,  do  you  reckon  you'll  find  anything  meaner'n  that 
over  in  Injianny  ?" 

"  I'll  tell  ye  when  I  git  back.  We'd  best  be  movin'  now. 
I  want  to  git  out  of  Kaintucky ;  I  jest  do." 

"  Wall,  pop,  I  don't  know  as  I  keer  much  whar  we  go  to." 

Tom  strode  away  down  the  road,  but  it  was  marvelous  how 
easily  the  light-footed  youngster  kept  up  with  him.  Mile  after 
mile  they  went  on  together,  along  roads  which  were  only  here 
and  there  bordered  by  anything  which  would  nowadays  be  con- 
sidered cultivation.  The  State  of  Kentucky  was  a  very  young 
one  in  the  fall  of  the  year  1816,  and  was  barely  beginning  to 
work  its  way  out  of  the  backwoods  into  the  long,  toilsome  path 
towards  civilization.  Still,  if  Abe  Lincoln  and  his  father  had 
been  on  the  lookout  for  a  poorer  piece  of  "improvement" 
than  "  Rock  Spring  Farm,"  they  would  probably  have  failed 
to  find  it  during  that  day's  walking. 

A  poor  place  indeed,  both  land  and  dwelling.  There  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  was  born,  on  the  12th  day  of  February,  1809.  He 
spent  there  the  first  four  years  of  his  life,  and  it  was  such  lif e 
as  was  possible  in  such  a  hut  as  he  had  now  been  taken  back 
to  look  at.  Its  hardening,  narrowing,  stunting  conditions, 
creating  barriers  and  fetters  to  be  afterwards  burst  or  broken, 
are  worth  a  careful  recognition  and  study. 

The  end  of  Abe's  tramp  gave  him  a  chance  to  compare  with 
the  place  of  his  birth  the  cabin  he  was  now  at  home  in.  It  was 
just  a  trifle  better,  and  the  land  around  presented  less  of  an  ap- 


A  CHAOTIC  BEGINNING.  15 

pearance  of  utter  poverty.  He  laughed  a  little  when  lie  saw 
it,  not  knowing,  yet,  how  much  to  make  any  human  being 
somber-faced  there  was  in  a  prospect  of  being  shut  up  to  the 
necessity  of  spending  his  days  in  such  a  home  as  that. 

A  dark-featured,  handsome,  but  sad-faced  woman,  of  middle 
height,  stood  in  the  doorway  of  the  log-cabin  as  her  husband 
and  son  drew  near. 

"  Now,  Tom,  you  haven't  fetched  home  any  game  this  time." 

"  "Wall,  no,  Nancy.  Abe  and  I  kinder  wandered  off  to  Hod- 
gensville,  and  I  met  some  of  the  fellers,  and  we  had  a  talk,  and 
then  we  took  a  circuit  round  and  looked  at  the  old  place.  It's 
wuss'n  it  ever  was,  Nancy." 

"  Meanest  kind,"  grumbled  Abe ;  but  his  mother  looked  sad- 
der than  before,  and  his  father  went  on : 

"  Then  we  struck  for  home.  I  reckon  I'll  take  water  to- 
morrer.  You  never  seen  a  deader  place'n  town  is,  jest  now. 
Nothin'  doin'.  No  kind  of  fun.  No  chances.  I'm  gwine  to 
quit  Kaintuck,  Nancy ;  I'm  set  on  that/' 

"  I  don't  keer  whar  we  go.  We  can't  make  a  poorer  out 
than  we've  made  yer." 

Not  without  an  effort.  It  needed  but  a  glance  at  the  sur- 
roundings of  the  homestead  to  perceive  the  justice  of  Nancy's 
despairing  criticism.  The  hands  of  lazy  improvidence  and  of 
the  poverty  that  comes  with  it  had  fallen  upon  and  withered 
everything  but  the  weeds.  There  were  a  few  acres  of  plowed 
ground  between  the  house  and  the  forest.  A  crop  of  corn  had 
been  harvested  from  the  patch,  but  such  fall  plowing  as  had 
followed  had  been  done  by  the  noses  of  the  hogs  and  not  by 
human  labor.  It  was  a  place  to  move  away  from,  surely ;  but 
the  people  who  had  made  it  what  it  was  were  likely  to  carry 
with  them  all  its  real  disadvantages. 

Nancy  turned  wearily  into  the  house,  and  Tom  did  not  fol- 
low her.  He  walked  away  upon  another  errand,  and  Abe  went 
with  him.  Half  a  mile,  not  at  all  hurried,  brought  them  to 
the  bank  of  a  good  stream  of  water.  A  rude  flatboat  lay 


16  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

moored  against  the  shore,  and  Tom  looked  at  it  with  pride  in  his 
eyes  as  he  said, 

"  I  made  her  myself,  I  did." 

She  looked  like  the  work  of  some  such  man.  A  good 
enough  craft  in  which  to  float  down  stream ;  but  no  sensible 
navigator  would  have  undertaken  to  urge  her  blunt  nose  and 
ill-balanced  bulk  in  any  other  direction.  Still,  she  could  carry 
weight,  and  had  a  cargo  already  on  board.  There  were  a  dozen 
or  so  of  barrels,  and  these,  with  some  boxes  and  bags  and  other 
matters,  were  stowed  unevenly  around,  in  such  a  way  as  to 
render  the  clumsy  craft  yet  more  unmanageable. 

"  Pop,"  said  Abe,  "  do  you  reckon  you'll  ever  git  her  back  ?" 

"  Wai,  no.  That  ain't  what  she's  made  for.  Reckon  I'll 
make  enough  outen  the  trip  to  start  us  in  Injianny." 

The  flatboat  was  looked  at  and  admired,  and  the  father  and 
son  went  home  to  the  slender  supper  of  milk  and  corn-bread 
provided  for  them  by  Nancy,  Tom  but  dimly  knew  how.  The 
evening  was  consumed  in  varying  calculations  of  the  sure 
profits  of  the  voyage  of  the  flatboat  and  the  sale  of  her  cargo. 
About  all  the  comment  his  wife  could  muster  courage  to  make 
was, 

"Hope  ye  will.  You've  traded  yer  last  hog  for  it,  and 
x  ty  much  everything  else  thar  was  left." 

%w  don't  you  be  skeered,  Nancy.  I'm  bound  to  make  a 
new  b,  «,  I  am.  Abe  and  Sally  mought  as  well  keep  on  gwine 
to  school  whilst  I'm  gone.  Reckon  they  won't  light  onto  any 
schoolin'  around  in  the  woods  arter  we  git  squatted  over  into 
Injianny." 

The  one  fact  which  came  out  more  plainly  than  any  other 
was  that,  come  what  might  of  the  trading  expedition  and  the 
cargo  of  the  flatboat,  Tom  Lincoln  had  made  an  end  of  his 
prospects  in  Kentucky,  and  that  a  new  start  somewhere  else 
had  now  become  a  financial  necessity. 


HAPHAZARD  MIGRATION.  17 


CHAPTER  II. 

HAPHAZAED   MIGRATION. 

Tom   Lincoln's  Venture — Little  Abe — The  Trip   through   the  Woods — 
From  one  Hut  to  another — 1816. 

AT  an  early  hour  the  next  morning,  the  Lincoln  family  were 
gathered  on  the  bank  of  the  Rolling  Fork  to  see  the  precious 
flatboat  pushed  away.  She  had  been  built  and  launched  at 
the  mouth  of  Knob  Creek,  a  stream  that  ran  past  their  own 
cabin,  but  with  too  little  depth  of  water  to  float  so  ambitious  a, 
craft  as  Tom  had  now  constructed. 

"  She'll  do,  Nancy.  This  'ere's  the  biggest  venter  ever  I 
made." 

"  Tom,  do  you  reckon  three  weeks'll  fetch  ye  home  ?" 

"  Sure  as  shootin'.  It's  only  a  float  down  Rollin'  Fork  to 
Salt  River,  and  down  that  to  the  Ohio.  Once  I  git  thar,  I  kin 
sell  out  the  cargo,  all  along  shore.  I'll  make  a  location  on  the 
Injianny  side,  and  then  I'll  come  back  a-kitin'.  Good-by, 
Nancy.  'By,  Sally.  Abe,  jest  you  look  sharp,  now,  while 
I'm  gone." 

A  chorus  of  Good-bys  answered  him,  and  then  his  wife 
stood  on  the  bank,  silently  watching  the  drift  of  his  awkward 
boat  down  the  rapid  current  of  the  Rolling  Fork. 

"  Abe,"  said  his  sister,  "  don't  you  wish  he'd  let  you  go  ?" 

"  Reckon  I  do.     I'd  jest  like  to  be  thar  when  she  lops  over." 

"  She  can't  upset." 

"  Can't  she  ?    Wall,  all  I  know  is,  pop  can  swim." 

Sally  Lincoln  was  two  years  older  than  Abe  and  a  good  deal 
better-looking,  but  she  was  hardly  as  tall,  and  he  was  sure  to 
keep  ahead  of  her  in  mere  size.  She  looked  at  him,  too,  as  if 


18  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

she  were  already  beginning  to  regard  him  in  the  light  of  a 
"big  brother."  She  had  been  originally  named  after  her 
mother,  but  then,  and  in  later  years,  there  were  too  many 
"  Nancies"  under  the  Lincoln  roof,  and  she  is  remembered 
only  as  Sally. 

"I  do  hope  he'll  git  through  all  right,"  muttered  Tom's 
wife,  as  she  turned  moodily  away.  Then  she  added,  in  a 
louder  key : 

"  Now  you,  Abe,  Sally,  jest  you  git  for  the  Friend  Farm. 
Tell  Caleb  Hazel  he's  only  to  hev  three  weeks  more  of  ye." 

"  Reckon  'twon't  take  more'n  that  to  learn  what  he  knows," 
chuckled  Abe ;  but  Sally  answered  him,  a  little  sharply : 

"  Ef  you  don't  take  in  more  from  him  than  you  did  from 
Zach  Einey,  it  won't  do  you  any  sort  o'  good." 

"  Git  each  of  ye  a  chunk  of  corn-bread,"  said  Nancy,  "  and 
then  you  make  yer  tracks.  It's  only  four  mile  to  go,  and  you 
needn't  be  late  ef  you  don't  1'iter.  He  ain't  pertikler  'bout 
bein'  late,  no  how." 

Whether  that  were  true  or  not,  Sally  had  a  sad  report  to 
.make  of  her  brother  on  her  return  from  school  that  evening. 

"Licked  again!"  exclaimed  his  mother.  "Ef  yer  father 
'was  home,  you  know  what  'd  come  to  ye." 

"  Mom,"  added  Sally,  gravely,  "  that  ain't  all.  He  said  he 
wished  old  Caleb  and  the  entire  school  was  onto  pop's  flatboat 
a-goin'  down  Kollin'  Fork." 

"  Did  you  say  that,  Abe  ?" 

"  It'd  be  more'n  three  weeks  'fore  they'd  git  back,"  chuckled 
the  young  rebel.  But  it  may  be  that  Nancy  Lincoln's  heart  was 
a  little  full  that  night,  for  she  took  no  further  notice  of  her 
son's  misconduct.  It  was  nothing  new  to  find  that  he  was 
more  than  seven  years  old  in  all  manner  of  mischief.  And  yet 
his  childish  eyes  were  now  following  her  own,  sadly  enough, 
as  she  looked  around  the  one  room  inclosed  by  the  log  walls  of 
the  cabin.  It  had  always  been  poorly  furnished,  even  for  such 
a  home,  and  now  Tom  Lincoln's  great  venture  had  stripped  it 


HAPHAZARD  MIGRATION.  19 

almost  bare.  He  had  traded  nearly  everything  tradable  to 
obtain  the  cargo  of  his  flatboat,  and  the  place  looked  dread- 
fully desolate.  For  some  reason  he  had  even  taken  with  him 
his  kit  of  carpenter's  tools, — for  Tom  was  a  jack-of-all-trades, 
— and  the  now  empty  corner  where  it  once  had  stood  spoke 
eloquently  of  the  sure  changes  to  come. 

The  going  or  remaining  of  the  Lincoln  family  would  make 
no  changes  in  the  little  farm.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  wild, 
rough  beauty  in  the  neighborhood.  Knob  Creek  could  not 
float  a  flatboat,  and  was  only  moderately  good  for  fishing; 
but  its  banks,  up  and  down  through  the  heavy  timber,  had  a 
reputation  of  their  own  for  woodchucks,  or  "  ground-hogs," 
and  little  Abe  had  long  since  discovered  that  there  was  more 
fun  to  be  had  in  digging  out  one  of  these  than  in  hunting  for 
the  right  way  to  spell  a  word.  He  had  learned  to  hunt  wood- 
chucks  even  before  leaving  Rock  Spring  Farm,  along  Nolin 
Creek,  and  on  Knob  Creek  he  had  the  company  of  his  cousin, 
Dennis  Hanks,  in  that  and  in  the  higher  art  of  catching  fish. 

There  was  almost  as  much  to  be  learned  in  the  woods,  and 
on  the  water  and  under  it,  as  from  Caleb  Hazel ;  and  yet  Abe 
had  prospered  notably  under  both  his  present  schoolmaster  and 
Zachariah  Riney,  considering  how  very  few  months  in  all  he 
received  the  benefit  of  their  instructions. 

He  was  yet  to  be  a  hard  student,  indeed,  but  without  pro- 
fessional masters ;  so  that  in  his  ripe  manhood  he  should  be 
forced  to  say  that  all  the  "  schooling"  given  him  from  the  first 
had  amounted  to  less  than  one  year  of  regular  tuition. 

It  was  not  likely  that  studious  tendencies  would  be  increased 
in  a  Kentucky  boy  of  less  than  eight  years  by  the  prospect  of 
a  great  journey  into  the  mysterious  wilderness  of  Indiana. 

At  that  precise  date  this  was  still  a  "  territory,"  and  remained 
so  until  early  in  the  following  winter.  The  possession  of  its 
forests,  and  of  the  fertile  prairies  beyond  them  to  the  west- 
ward, was  still  sullenly  disputed  by  the  red  Indians,  and  the 
tide  of  immigration  was  but  beginning  to  set  in  that  direction. 


20  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

For  more  than  a  generation  Kentucky  itself  had  been,  in  the 
strife  between  the  savages  and  the  settlers,  the  same  "  dark  and 
bloody  ground"  which  it  had  been  for  ages  before  the  white  men 
came,  in  endless  struggles  for  its  hunting-grounds,  between  the 
warring  tribes  of  the  red  men.  It  was  yet  to  become  the  scene 
of  bloodier  battles,  the  causes  and  magnitude  of  which  could 
not  then  have  been  imagined  by  any  man.  The  especial  cause 
existed  and  was  fast  increasing ;  but  it  is  worthy  of  note  that 
there  were  but  a  few  score  of  negro  slaves  in  the  broad  reach 
of  country  then  known  as  Hardin  County,  and  which  con- 
tained the  several  temporary  residences  of  Tom  Lincoln ;  also 
that  the  emigrants  from  Kentucky  and  other  slave  States  into 
Illinois  and  Indiana  did  not  go  to  escape  contact  with  human  ser- 
vitude, and  did  not  even  become  antislavery  men,  to  any  ex- 
tent, in  their  new  homes. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  in  no  sense  whatever  born  or  reared 
as  an  abolitionist,  and  such  prejudices  as  his  father  may  have 
had  were  not  opposed  to  any  one  particular  kind  of  labor. 

Tom  Lincoln  came  back,  and  he  came  by  land  and  on  foot, 
and  he  had  a  tale  to  tell  when  Nancy  asked  him  how  well  he 
had  sold  his  cargo. 

"Sold  it?  "Wai,  ye-es,  I  sold  what  thar  was  left  of  it. 
The  best  part  on  it  went  off  down  the  Ohio,  'bout  the  time 
that  thar  flatboat  of  mine  got  twisted  into  an  eddy  and  up- 

BOt." 

"  So  ye  kem  back  afoot,  an'  nothin'  to  show  for  it." 

"  Not  quite  so  bad  as  that.  I  saved  my  kit  of  tools,  and  my 
rifle,  and  some  of  the  barr'ls.  I  got  the  boat  righted  too, 
and  I  sold  her,  and  I  fished  up  some  of  the  other  things  and 
I  sold  'em.  B-ut  Nancy,  I  tell  ye,  I've  located !" 

"  Found  a  place  ?" 

"  Best  kind ;  and  not  a  soul  to  interfere.  It's  jest  about  six- 
teen mile  back  from  the  Ohio  River,  and  a  sweeter  spot  you 
never  seen.  We'll  light  outen  this  to-morrer." 

"  I  don't  keer  how  soon  we  go." 


HAPHAZARD  MIGRATION.  21 

It  was  not  in  Tom's  nature  to  really  move  so  promptly,  and 
some  days  went  by  before  the  departure  took  place. 

Transportation  of  some  sort  was  a  necessity,  and  horses  were 
of  small  price  in  Kentucky  in  those  days,  except  for  the  higher 
grades.  Somehow  or  other,  and  by  whatever  help,  Tom  man- 
aged to  obtain  the  services  of  two,  such  as  they  were.  They 
were  at  all  events  good  enough  to  carry  what  property  he  now 
had  remaining,  and  there  was  little  need  of  any  wagon  to  roll 
behind  them.  That,  too,  was  just  as  well,  considering  the  na- 
ture of  the  roads  to  be  traveled  and  the  seasoned  toughness  of 
the  bare  feet  of  Tom  Lincoln  and  his  sad-faced  wife,  and  of 
their  boy  and  girl.  There  was  no  thought  of  tempting  again 
the  perils  of  Rolling  Fork  and  Salt  River  and  the  Ohio  on  any 
kind  of  boat  or  float.  Tom  had  had  all  the  water  he  wanted. 

Over  in  the  graveyard,  near  Hodgensville,  there  was  a  very 
email  green  hillock,  to  which  Mrs.  Lincoln  paid  a  visit,  taking 
Abe  with  her,  during  those  days  of  waiting.  All  she  said  to  him 
about  it  was  that  if  the  little  boy  lying  there  had  lived,  he  and 
Sally  would  now  have  a  brother  to  travel  to  Indiana  with  them. 

The  day  for  departure  came  at  last,  and  the  route  to  be  trav- 
eled had  been  determined  beforehand.  Towns  and  villages 
were  scarce  enough  in  all  that  region,  and  the  few  wayside 
taverns  were  on  the  lines  of  the  more  frequented  highways. 
Little,  however,  did  Tom  Lincoln  or  his  wife  care  for  that,  and 
the  children  did  not  know  enough  to  give  such  things  a 
thought.  The  whole  forest,  from  Knob  Creek  to  the  Ohio, 
and  as  far  beyond  that  river  as  any  one  might  choose  to  go, 
was  one  grand  hotel,  open  by  night  and  day,  and  wherein  there 
was  no  danger  of  being  elbowed  by  other  guests.  "Whenever 
a  day's  journey  should  be  completed  it  would  only  be  necessary 
to  unpack  the  tired  horses  and  turn  them  loose  to  pick  their  own 
supper.  A  fire  could  be  kindled  with  flint  and  steel,  and  Mrs. 
Lincoln  and  Sally  could  fry  a  little  bacon  or  cook  such  game 
as  Tom's  rifle  might  provide.  They  were  almost  sure  to  fall  in 
with  eatable  wild  creatures  in  the  course  of  each  day's  march. 


22  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  burdens  of  the  horses  were  not  so  heavy  that  they  could 
not  now  and  then  take  on  also  a  human  weight,  and  there  was 
no  special  demand  for  haste. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  describe  the  Lincoln  family  as  un- 
dergoing hardships  or  privations  in  such  a  journey  as  they  were 
now  making.  It  was  more  like  a  prolonged  "  picnic"  than  any- 
thing  else.  At  night,  a  bed  of  boughs  with  a  blanket  thrown 
over  them  was  as  soft  and  comfortable  a  resting-place  as  they 
had  ever  known.  There  was  plenty  to  eat  and  drink ;  the  au- 
tumn weather  was  fine ;  there  was  no  shadow  of  peril ;  and  as 
for  any  other  matter,  it  was  as  Nancy  had  said,  and  any  kind 
of  change  offered  a  reasonable  hope  of  bettering  their  condition. 
So  they  went  on  through  the  woods  and  opens  until  they  came 
out  in  sight  of  the  Ohio  River. 

"  Yonder's  Thompson's  Ferry,"  exclaimed  Tom.  "  I  knowed 
we  was  on  the  right  track.  We'll  git  across  afore  sundown.  I 
left  all  the  truck  I  didn't  sell  right  over  thar,  with  a  feller 
named  Posey.  Now,  Nancy,  hurrah  for  Injianny !  "What  does 
it  look  like  to  ye  ?" 

"  Most  like  any  other  piece  of  woods  ever  I  seen." 

So  it  did ;  and  so  did  all  the  country  north,  and  the  country 
west  of  it,  to  the  great  prairies ;  and  so  did  the  Northwest,  all 
the  vast  region  which  has  since  been  carved  into  States  and  oc- 
cupied by  so  many  millions  of  happy  and  unhappy  human  be- 
ings. 

A  mere  piece  of  woods,  to  look  at ;  but  in  among  the  trees  and 
thickets,  between  the  Ohio  River  and  the  lakes  and  the  British 
boundary-line,  there  were  worse  than  wild  beasts  for  a  settler  to 
contend  with.  These,  too,  were  there  in  great  abundance :  buf- 
alo,  elk,  deer,  panthers,  bears,  catamounts,  wild  turkeys,  small 
animals  innumerable ;  these  might  even  be  regarded  as  a  resource 
and  a  perpetual  harvest.  There,  however,  wandering  in  hunting 
and  war  parties  or  gathered  in  their  villages,  were  the  Sioux,  Sacs, 
Foxes,  Pawnees,  and  a  score  of  other  terrible  tribes.  Among 
the  many  chiefs  and  leaders  of  these  was  the  mighty  Black- 


HAPHAZARD  MIGRATION.  23 

hawk,  even  then  a  middle-aged  warrior  of  high  renown,  and 
little  Abe  was  to  know  many  valuable  things  hereafter  with 
the  help  of  that  particular  Indian.  He  was,  in  a  manner,  to 
go  to  a  school  of  his  keeping,  and  learn  in  it  great  practical  les- 
sons for  the  benefit  of  his  country. 

Abe  knew  nothing  of  Blackhawk  then,  however,  and  his 
deepest  interest  for  the  moment  was  centred  upon  the  flat-bot- 
tomed ferry-boat  which  was  to  convey  them  across  the  swift 
and  muddy  water  of  the  Ohio.  It  bore  a  remarkable  likeness 
to  the  hapless  craft  his  father  had  launched  at  the  mouth  of 
Knob  Creek.  The  passage  was  made  in  safety,  nevertheless, 
and  so  was  the  rest  of  the  march  to  the  Posey  homestead ;  and 
here  the  Lincoln  family  passed  their  first  night  in  the  Territory 
of  Indiana. 

The  next  morning  a  lumber-wagon  was  obtained,  and  laden 
with  the  packs  from  the  two  horses  and  the  poor  relics  of  the 
cargo  of  Tom's  flatboat.  To  these  were  added  a  few  sacks  of 
corn,  and  then  all  would  have  been  very  well  if  there  had  been 
any  road  before  them  by  which  to  travel. 

"  I've  been  thar,"  said  Tom.  "  I  kin  find  the  spot,  and  the 
trail's  been  blazed  pretty  much  all  the  way." 

True  enough ;  but  when  he  made  his  choice  of  a  location  he 
had  been  unincumbered,  except  by  the  rifle  on  his  shoulder 
and  the  axe  with  which  he  "  blazed  "  the  trees  to  mark  his  path. 
Now  he  had  a  team  and  a  loaded  wagon  behind  him,  and  these 
required  a  wider  path  than  that  by  which  a  hunter's  feet  might 
pass.  There  was  no  help  for  it,  and  a  road  had  to  be  cut  by 
good  hard  ax-work  wherever  the  trees  stood  too  closely  to- 
gether for  the  wagon  to  squeeze  between.  The  distance  was 
but  sixteen  miles  in  a  straight  line,  but  it  was  much  more  by 
the  winding  road  Tom  Lincoln  made.  By  the  time  he  reached 
the  land  he  was  to  settle  on,  he  may  be  said  to  have  fairly 
earned  it.  He  did  reach  it ;  and  the  autumn  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln's seventh  year  found  him  a  very  new  settler  in  one  of  the 
very  newest  of  all  new  countries. 


24  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER  III. 

CHILD-LIFE   IN  THE   WILDERNESS. 
I 

Pole- shelter — Log  Cabin  and  Clearing — Pestilence  and  Suffering — A  Forest 
Funeral— 1818. 

A  GKASSY  hillock  in  the  middle  of  a  primeval  forest  is  a  very 
pretty  thing  to  look  upon.  It  will  serve  well,  too,  as  a  place 
for  a  temporary  camp,  in  the  perfect  weather  of  an  American 
autumn.  Storms  are  sure  to  come,  however,  and  storms  bring 
rain,  and  the  winter  follows  the  autumn. 

"  Nancy,"  said  Tom,  "  we  can't  stop  to  put  up  a  house  jest 
now ;  thar  ain't  time.  "We'll  hev  to  start  with  a  pole-shelter." 

"  That'll  do  first  rate ;  but  I  do  wish  we  was  nigher  to  a 
spring.  That  thar  water-hole  looks  as  if  it  mought  go  clean 
dry  in  summer,"  remarked  his  wife. 

"  Reckon  not.  Leastwise  it'll  do  till  summer  comes.  "We 
don't  call  for  much  water,  no  how." 

There  was  some  truth  in  that ;  but  in  after-time  Tom  was  to 
spend  many  a  weary  day's  work  sinking  unproductive  holes 
in  that  neighborhood  in  a  vain  search  for  a  well.  He  had 
done  better  if  he  had  camped  nearer  a  spring  in  the  first  place. 

As  he  said,  the  building  of  a  log-house  was  no  small  affair, 
while  a  large-sized  "  hunter's  camp"  could  be  put  up  in  a  hur- 
ry. Four  fork-tipped  uprights  at  the  corners,  those  in  the  rear 
a  little  the  longer,  with  strong  "  poles,"  or  trunks  of  young 
trees,  laid  upon  them,  answered  for  the  frame.  Against  these 
an  abundance  of  other  "  poles"  could  be  leaned  and  fastened, 
and  the  roof  could  be  put  on  in  corresponding  style,  with  slabs 
of  bark  to  shed  the  rain  until  shingles  could  be  cut.  For 
housekeeping  purposes  a  fireplace  and  chimney  of  tempered 


CHILD-LIFE  IN  THE   WILDERNESS.  25 

clay  and  sticks  was  all  any  settler  expected  ;  and  cracks  between 
the  poles  could  also  be  "  chinked "  with  mud,  whether  they 
were  perpendicular  or  horizontal.  The  earth  inclosed  was 
pounded  hard  to  make  a  floor  of  it.  The  household  goods 
were  brought  in  and  scattered  around  the  humble  dwelling, 
and  little  Abe's  first  home  in  Indiana  was  as  comfortable  as  it 
would  ever  be.  There  are  many  patterns  of  "  pole-shelters," 
but  Tom  Lincoln  was  not  the  man  to  waste  upon  his  own  any 
labor  not  absolutely  and  immediately  demanded  by  stern  neces- 
sity. 

Thus  much  having  been  provided  against  wind  and  rain, 
there  was  "  clearing"  to  be  done  before  there  would  be  any 
farm,  and  Tom  took  to  his  ax.  The  woods  around  the  cabin 
rang  with  the  strokes  of  his  chopping  through  what  was  left 
of  the  autumn  and  all  through  the  winter,  except  when  he  was 
hunting  the  game  required  to  keep  his  family  from  starving, 
or  was  absent  on  some  errand  to  the  shore  of  the  Ohio. 

There  was  plenty  of  fun  for  little  Abe,  and  with  it  no  small 
amount  of  work  for  him  and  his  mother  and  sister,  as  the 
clearing  went  on.  There  were  quantities  of  brushwood,  and 
the  like,  to  be  heaped  upon  the  fallen  tree-trunks  and  set  on  fire. 
There  were  rabbits  and  even  wild  turkeys  to  be  trapped  and 
brought  home  in  triumph,  and  the  supply  of  woodchucks  was 
all  any  boy  could  ask  for.  Then,  too,  he  could  sometimes  go 
out  with  his  father  for  deer  by  day,  and  by  night  for  the  plen- 
tiful harvest  of  raccoons.  The  latter  were  not  "  game,"  but 
their  skins  had  a  sure  market,  and  were  as  good  as  money  in 
payment  for  anything  that  was  to  be  bought  at  the  "  store"  by 
the  river,  sixteen  miles  away. 

The  winters  of  Southern  Indiana  are  rarely  severe.  Old 
settlers  say  now  that  the  climate  was  much  milder  in  the  old 
days,  before  the  forests  were  cleared  away.  The  "  half-faced 
camp,"  as  people  used  to  call  the  kind  of  shelter  Tom  Lincoln 
had  made,  so  long  as  it  remained  open  on  one  side,  answered 
its  purpose  very  well.  It  was  as  good  a  place  to  live  in,  during 


26  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

most  weather,  as  the  old  cabin  on  Knob  Creek  or  the  older 
one  on  Rock  Spring  Farm.  There  was  "  settler's  comfort"  to 
be  had  even  when  it  rained,  in  watching  the  leaks  in  the  roof, 
to  know  just  where  to  put  on  another  slab  of  bark  or  basswood 
shingle  when  the  weather  should  clear. 

Before  spring  came  again  there  was  enough  of  land  around 
the  cabin,  chopped  clear  of  trees,  to  admit  the  planting  of  a 
patch  of  corn  and  potatoes  between  the  stumps.  There  was 
no  use  in  spending  hard  work  on  any  kind  of  fence  for  that 
many-sided  field.  The  deer  would  have  jumped  over  it,  if 
made ;  the  'coons  and  squirrels  would  have  climbed  it ;  and  the 
few  pigs  Tom  had  been  able  to  gather  preferred  to  hunt  a  bet- 
ter living  in  the  woods. 

Except  for  the  company  of  his  sister,  little  Abe's  first  year 
in  the  wilderness  was  a  lonely  one.  There  was  no  neighbor 
for  miles  and  miles.  In  one  direction  lay  Big  Pigeon  Creek, 
and  in  another  Little  Pigeon  Creek,  afterwards  called  "Prairie 
Fork."  Abe  knew  there  were  other  settlements  off  there 
somewhere,  and  other  boys  and  girls ;  but  all  of  them  had  their 
own  woodchucks  to  dig  out,  and  none  came  near  enough  to 
help  him  with  his.  Even  berry-picking,  in  the  season  of  it, 
was  a  solitary  and  monotonous  business,  unless  a  bear  chose 
to  show  himself  among  the  bushes,  or  a  gang  of  deer  came  out 
through  the  trees  to  be  looked  at. 

Abe's  legs  grew  longer  and  longer  that  year,  just  from  hav- 
ing to  travel  so  far  for  everything ;  and  all  the  while  the  gloom 
and  silence  and  awe  of  the  great,  solemn  forest  was  settling 
upon  his  childish  heart,  and  teaching  him  deep  lessons,  too 
deep  for  Mm  then  to  understand.  He  had  no  other  teachers 
that  year. 

As  soon  as  hoeing  time  was  over  and  the  growing  crops 
could  be  left  to  take  care  of  themselves,  there  was  a  great  work 
on  hand.  Nothing  less  than  the  building  of  a  solid,  full- 
grown,  heavy-log  house. 

Tom  Lincoln's  natural  aversion  to  needless  work  forbade 


CHILD-LIFE  IN  THE  WILDERNESS.  27 

him  doing  more  for  his  logs  than  to  cut  them  to  right  lengths 
and  notch  them  for  placing,  before,  with  such  help  as  he  could 
get,  they  were  rolled  and  hoisted  into  their  places.  They  wore 
all  their  bark  after  they  were  in  the  walls,  and  that  was  no 
more  than  was  customary.  Then,  too,  the  holes  left  for  the 
window-sashes,  which  might  some  day  be  put  in,  were  just  as 
well  without  for  the  present,  in  Tom's  opinion.  Light  and  air 
would  enter  the  cabin  through  them  unhindered.  So  they 
would  through  the  open  doorway,  in  which  no  door  was  made 
to  swing.  The  earth  on  which  the  house  was  built,  when 
pounded  hard,  would  once  more,  as  in  the  pole-shelter,  answer 
all  the  known  purposes  of  a  floor,  so  long  as  no  pigs  should  be 
permitted  to  tear  it  up  with  their  noses. 

The  log-house  was  a  great  improvement  on  the  "  camp,"  and 
it  was  hardly  ready  to  move  into  before  there  were  new-comers 
ready  to  occupy  the  hovel  the  Lincoln  family  moved  out  of. 

Indiana  had  now  become  a  State,  with  a  population  of  about 
65,000,  and  a  great  tide  of  immigration  was  beginning  to  pour 
in.  On  the  very  first  wave  of  it,  in  the  autumn  of  the  year 
1817,  came  relatives  of  the  Lincolns,  for  Mrs.  Betsy  Sparrow 
was  an  aunt  of  Tom's  wife,  Nancy,  and  had  cared  for  her  in 
her  childhood.  With  her  came  her  husband,  Thomas  Sparrow, 
and  a  nephew  of  hers,  the  same  little  Dennis  Hanks  who  had 
been  Abe's  playmate  on  Knob  Creek. 

The  Lincoln  settlement  was  sadly  in  need  of  neighbors,  and 
the  new  settlers  were  welcomed.  The  Sparrows  made  their 
nest  in  the  deserted  pole-shelter,  and  now  Abe  and  his  sister 
had  somebody  to  keep  them  company  in  the  woods,  and  an- 
other house  near  enough  to  go  to.  Dennis  was  as  fond  of  all 
manner  of  fun  as  was  Abe  himself,  but  there  was  no  other 
resemblance  between  them. 

The  Sparrows  were  every  shade  as  poor  as  the  Lincolns ;  and 
as  for  the  latter,  it  is  matter  of  record  that  their  new  log-house 
contained  neither  chair,  nor  table,  nor  bedstead,  other  than 
such  rough  affairs  as  could  be  made  by  Tom  himself  from  the 


28  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

trees  lie  cut  down  in  the  woods  around  him.  The  cooking, 
such  as  it  was,  was  done  before  the  open  fireplace,  with  the 
help  of  one  tin  oven  "  with  a  lid ;"  one  skillet,  which  also  had 
a  lid ;  a  few  tin  dishes,  and  an  earthen  pot  or  so.  But  then 
hot  coals  could  be  raked  out  to  broil  steaks  of  venison  or  bear- 
meat  ;  in  the  ashes  potatoes  could  be  roasted,  or  chestnuts ;  and 
in  the  season  of  green  corn  as  many  roasting-ears  could  be 
eaten  as  the  children  should  choose  to  gather. 

There  was  no  hardship  in  all  that  part  of  frontier  house- 
keeping, and  little  Abe  did  not  feel  the  absence  of  knives  and 
forks  and  table-cloths  and  a  host  of  other  luxuries  which  as  yet 
he  did  not  know  by  name.  The  earthen  floor  grew  dry  and 
hard  and  did  not  require  any  carpet.  It  would  never  fade  or 
wear  out.  Truly  it  is  wonderful  how  few  are  the  things  which 
cannot  be  dispensed  with,  and  the  red  Indians,  time  out  of 
mind,  had  managed  very  much  after  the  manner  of  the  white 
settlers  who  were  now  so  steadily  driving  them  out  of  their 
ancient  hunting-grounds. 

When  the  month  of  February  came  again,  in  the  following 
winter,  Abraham  Lincoln  was  nine  years  old,  and  as  tall  as 
most  boys  of  eleven  or  twelve.  He  could  outrun  any  boy  of 
his  size  among  the  old  settlers  or  among  the  new  families  that 
were  now  coming  in  and  scattering  their  cabins,  here  and  there, 
through  all  the  woods.  He  could  handle  an  ax  pretty  well, 
and  was  a  fair  shot  with  a  rifle,  although  that  was  the  one 
backwoods  art  in  which  he  never  made  himself  perfect.  He 
could  hit  a  mark,  living  or  otherwise,  but  there  was  no  great 
accuracy  in  his  marksmanship. 

It  was  well  for  him  and  his  sister  that  they  were  now  old 
and  strong  enough  to  take  some  care  of  themselves,  for  they 
were  very  soon  to  have  that  to  do.  The  spring  of  1818  went 
by  without  anything  especial  to  mark  it,  but  trouble  came  with 
the  heats  of  summer. 

From  that  day  to  this,  the  scourge  known  among  the  people 
as  "  the  milk-sick"  has  appeared  locally,  at  longer  or  shorter 


CHILD-LIFE  IN  THE  WILDERNESS.  29 

intervals,  and  its  cause  and  nature  are  said  to  be  almost  as 
much  a  mystery  now  as  they  were  then.  Learned  men  have 
even  declared  that  there  is  no  such  disease,  and  they  may  be 
right ;  but  cattle  die  of  it,  and  so  do  human  beings,  in  their 
helpless  ignorance.  It  came  that  summer,  creeping  around 
among  the  cabins  of  the  settlers,  and  nobody  knew  where  it 
came  from  or  how  to  deal  with  it.  There  were  no  physicians 
to  be  had ;  and  perhaps  it  was  as  well,  since  the  strange  dis- 
order was  to  baffle  science  for  half  a  century  afterwards. 
Farms  were  stripped  of  their  cattle,  and  men  and  women  lay 
down  to  suffer  tediously  and  waste  away  and  die,  and  small 
help  could  be  obtained  in  any  form. 

Among  those  who  were  taken  that  season  were  Thomas  and 
Betsy  Sparrow,  and  they  and  Dennis  Hanks  had  to  come  over 
to  the  log-house  to  be  cared  for. 

Then  Mrs.  Nancy  Lincoln  was  taken,  and  the  house  became 
a  sort  of  hospital,  with  Tom  Lincoln  to  provide  for  it,  and  the 
children  to  do  the  cooking  and  the  nursing. 

Through  the  hot,  still  days  of  the  remaining  summer,  and 
through  September,  the  watching  and  the  suffering  went  on  in 
the  lonely  log-hut,  and  not  in  all  that  time  was  there  a  single 
visit  there  of  any  physician. 

There  was  no  possible  thing  to  be  done  in  that  or  any  other 
cabin  through  all  that  region  to  make  matters  any  easier  for 
the  sick  or  for  the  well.  It  was  a  necessary  part  of  the  fron- 
tier-life through  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  receiving  his 
education  and  development.  He  and  his  sister  and  their  father 
and  little  Dennis  did  what  they  could,  but  Tom  was  often 
called  upon  to  leave  his  home  for  a  while.  He  was  the  only 
man  in  the  settlement  who  knew  how  to  saw  logs  into  rough 
planks  and  make  them  up  into  coffins,  and  there  was  need  of 
a  coffin  every  now  and  then. 

Thomas  and  Betsy  Sparrow  died  about  the  first  of  October, 
and  they  Were  both  buried  in  a  knoll  in  the  woods  about  half 
a  mile  northeast  of  their  cabin.  On  the  5th  of  October  Mrs. 


30  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Nancy  Lincoln  died,  and  she  too  was  buried  on  the  knoll  under 
the  shadows  of  the  forest.  About  a  score  of  people  attended 
the  funeral,  but  there  was  no  minister  present  to  conduct  the 
simple  ceremonies.  A  few  months  later  a  traveling  preacher 
named  David  Elkin  preached  a  funeral  sermon,  but  to  this  day- 
there  is  no  stone  to  mark  the  last  resting-place  of  the  body  of 
Nancy  Lincoln.  The  simple  fact  requires  no  word  of  com- 
ment or  interpretation. 

The  log-house  was  now  no  longer  a  hospital ;  it  was  only  a 
desolate  and  lonely  place  where  Tom  Lincoln  and  his  two  chil- 
dren and  Dennis  Hanks  could  stay  and  learn  all  the  remaining 
lessons  of  utter  poverty  in  the  backwoods. 

Abe  was  learning  lessons  very  fast,  and  more  shadows  were 
gathering  upon  his  boyish  face. 

The  change  in  the  manner  of  housekeeping  or  in  the  amount 
of  it  was  not  so  great  as  it  might  have  been  in  another  home 
than  that,  and  the  children  could  get  along  after  a  fashion 
without  any  mother.  Poor  Nancy  Lincoln  had  followed  her 
shiftless  husband  into  the  woods,  only  to  die  of  the  mysterious 
pestilence  and  to  be  buried,  and  soon  and  altogether  forgotten. 


A  NEW  ELEMENT.  31 


CHAPTER  IY. 

A     NEW     ELEMENT. 

Utter  Desolation — Arrival  of  a  Good  Angel — A  Ray  of  Civilization — 1819. 

THERE  are  many  things  which  cannot  be  done  by  a  ten- 
year-old  boy,  a  girl  of  twelve,  and  a  middle-aged  backwoods- 
man. There  were  no  new  clothes  made  that  winter  for  Nancy 
Lincoln's  motherless  children,  and  Tom  shifted  for  his  own 
apparel  as  best  he  could. 

The  spring,  the  summer,  and  the  autumn  of  the  year  1819 
went  slowly  by.  The  log-house  grew  more  dirty  and  more 
desolate,  and  Abe  and  his  sister  and  Dennis  Hanks  became 
more  and  more  like  a  trio  of  unwashed,  uncared-for,  and  half- 
naked  young  savages.  It  did  not  seem  so  much  of  a  hardship 
during  the  warmer  weather,  and  there  was  only  now  and  then 
a  passer-by  to  make  unkind  remarks  upon  the  condition  of 
things ;  but  the  storms  and  frosts  of  winter  were  surely  com- 
ing. 

Even  Tom  Lincoln  at  last  awoke  to  a  consciousness  that 
something  must  be  done,  and  about  the  first  of  November  the 
young  folk  had  the  cabin  all  to  themselves.  Whether  or  not 
they  knew  the  nature  of  Tom's  errand  to  Kentucky,  they  were 
left  to  do  their  own  housekeeping. 

There  was  corn  enough  and  bacon,  and  some  kinds  of  small 
fresh  meat  could  be  obtained  from  the  woods  by  a  fair  degree 
of  boyish  industry.  "Wood  was  to  be  had  for  the  chopping, 
and  they  need  not  freeze ;  and  there  were  the  cabins  of  neigh- 
bors to  go  to  now  in  any  dire  extremity.  Still  the  hunting  of 
game  over  frozen  ground,  and  the  chopping  of  logs  in  the  snow, 
was  chilly  work  for  barefooted  boys ;  and  the  next  four  weeks 


32  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

were  hard  ones,  in  the  course  of  training  through  which  little 
Abe  was  preparing  for  the  unknown  trials  before  him. 

The  weeks  went  by,  and  the  snow  fell,  and  the  storms  whis- 
tled through  the  woods  and  blew  drearily  in  through  the  open 
door  and  windows  of  the  cabin ;  but  the  children  made  the  best 
of  it. 

There  came  an  afternoon  in  December  when  a  great  shout 
reached  their  ears  from  the  edge  of  the  clearing.  It  was  Tom 
Lincoln's  voice,  and  the  young  housekeepers  went  out  to  see. 

He  had  returned,  and  he  had  come  with  a  team  of  four 
horses  and  a  lumber- wagon  laden  with  some  kind  of  property. 
There  had  plainly  been  a  miracle  of  some  sort.  It  was  very 
nearly  one,  for  Tom  had  persuaded  a  respectable  widow 
woman,  Mrs.  Sally  Johnston,  of  Elizabethtown,  Kentucky,  to 
marry  him  and  come  to  live  in  his  Indiana  "home."  Her 
maiden  name  had  been  Bush,  and  before  her  first  marriage 
Tom  had  admired  her  and  proposed  and  been  rejected.  Hi& 
present  suit  had  been  more  successful,  and  she  had  only  waited 
so  long  in  order  to  close  up  her  affairs  in  Kentucky.  The 
four-horse  team  was  the  property  of  Tom's  brother-in-law, 
Ralph  Krume,  who  had  been  hired  to  convey  the  bride  and 
her  household  goods  to  their  new  abiding-place. 

Their  new  mother  was  no  stranger  to  Abe  and  his  sister. 
She  had  even  exhibited  an  especial  liking  for  Abe  in  days  gone 
by,  and  she  had  now  been  sent  into  the  wilderness  for  his  bene- 
fit as  much  as  for  that  of  his  father. 

She  brought  with  her  a  son  and  two  daughters  of  her  own, — 
John,  Sarah,  and  Matilda, — and  with  them  what  to  the  eyes  of 
her  step-children  was  something  like  splendor.  The  wagon 
contained  a  fine  bureau,  a  table,  a  set  of  chairs,  a  large  clothes- 
chest,  cooking-utensils,  knives,  forks,  bedding,  and  other 
articles,  the  like  of  which  had  never  before  been  carried  under 
any  roof  of  Tom  Lincoln's. 

Mrs.  Sally  Johnston  had  been  a  woman  of  respectable  family 
and  much  personal  pride,  and  had  been  led  to  expect  some- 


A  NEW  ELEMENT.  33 

thing  very  different  from  the  manifest  poverty  and  squalor  now 
before  her  eyes.  She  had  been  told  of  a  house  and  a  farm,  and 
here  they  were  indeed ;  but  she  was  Mrs.  Lincoln  now,  and 
she  did  not  flinch  for  a  moment  from  the  new  duties  she  had 
undertaken.  It  was  a  good  deal  to  the  comfortless  little  ones 
of  poor  !Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln  that  her  place  should  be  taken 
by  an  old  neighbor  and  a  kind  one,  but  they  little  knew  what  a 
blessing  had  really  come  to  them.  Shy,  awkward,  conscious  of 
the  shocking  contrast  between  their  own  personal  appearance  and 
that  of  the  neatly  clad  children  of  their  new  mother,  Abe  and 
Sally  could  hardly  offer  the  new-comers  much  of  a  welcome. 

It  may  well  be  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  aided  by  the  sight  of  those 
forlorn  little  folk  in  smothering  any  expression  of  her  disap- 
pointment and  indignation. 

The  mute  appeal  of  their  misery  went  to  her  kind  heart 
overpoweringly.  She  saw  at  once  that  she  had  a  work  to  do,, 
but  there  was  no  prophet  to  tell  her  how  vast  were  to  be  the= 
consequences  of  that  work — that  is,  of  the  part  of  it  which  stood 
there  in  the  snow,  upheld  by  the  bare,  frost-cracked  feet  of  that 
dirty,  ragged  ten-years  boy  with  so  shy,  sad,  sensitive  a  face, 
trying  to  smile  at  her  from  under  his  shaggy  mop  of  tangled 
hair.  She  told  the  story  of  her  feelings,  years  afterwards,  with 
her  own  lips. 

"  The  poor  things  \"  she  exclaimed,  as  she  looked  at  them. 
"  I'll  make  'em  look  a  little  more  human." 

The  contents  of  the  wagon  were  transferred  to  the  one  room 
of  the  cabin,  and  Mrs.  Lincoln's  good  work  began.  She  had 
been  a  stirring,  energetic,  self-helpful  woman  all  her  life,  and 
she  took  hold  of  Tom's  house  after  a  fashion  that  gave  him 
plenty  of  work  to  do.  She  made  him  lay  a  substantial  wooden 
floor  over  the  old  one  of  pounded  dirt.  She  insisted  upon 
having  a  good  door  that  swung  on  hinges,  and  sashes  with 
glass  in  the  hitherto  vacant  window-holes.  Tom  was  forced  to 
trim  up  every  corner  of  the  house,  inside  and  out,  into  some- 
thing like  order  and  decency ;  and  when  this  was  done  and  the 


34  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

new  furniture  was  put  in  place,  there  was  an  air  of  home  about 
it  all  that  had  never  been  there  before. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  had  brought  with  her  a  good  store  of  clothing 
for  her  own  children,  and  now  she  showed  no  sign  of  par- 
tiality in  its  distribution.  As  soon  as  Abe  and  Dennis  and 
Sally  had  undergone  the  novel  sensation  of  a  thorough  wash- 
ing, they  were  made  to  know  the  greater  strangeness  of  being 
well  and  warmly  clad,  and  of  wearing  shoes  and  stockings  in 
cold  weather.  No  backwoods  children,  in  those  days,  would 
have  dreamed  of  any  such  luxury  without  a  hard  frost  for  an 
excuse. 

It  was  yet  another  novelty  to  have  good  beds  under  them, 
and  to  lie  warm  through  all  the  bitter  nights,  and  to  feel  that 
the  winter  was  forcibly  shut  out  from  pinching  them.  That 
was  the  first  shut  door  they  had  slept  behind  for  many  a  long 
cold  night  and  day. 

Abraham  Lincoln  had  received  a  new  mother,  and  wonder- 
ful matters  with  her.  He  had  suddenly  stepped  out  of  misery 
into  a  new  life.  He  was  clean  and  clothed  and  comfortable 
;and  well  fed,  with  such  a  home  as  he  had  never  known  before. 
Another  and  a  greater  thing  came  dawning  in  upon  the  dark- 
ness of  his  stunted  life,  for  he  had  found  some  one  whom  he 
could  love  with  all  his  heart,  and  love  her  he  did,  and  he  was 
well  assured  of  her  love  for  him.  To  the  end  of  his  life,  she 
was  the  "  mother"  to  whom  his  memories  went  back,  although 
beyond  her,  in  an  earlier  and  darker  hour  of  his  morning-time, 
was  the  form  of  his  first,  his  own  mother.  God  is  very  merci- 
ful to  children  as  to  all  their  early  troubles  and  bereavements ; 
and  little  Abe  had  been  without  any  mother  at  all  for  nearly  a 
year  and  a  half  when  his  father  returned  from  that  most  profit- 
able trip  to  Kentucky. 

Dennis  Hanks  and  Sally  Lincoln  shared  fairly  in  all  the 
benefits  bestowed.  But  the  latter  was  never  called  Nancy  any 
more.  Although  now  there  were  three  of  the  same  name  in 
the  united  family,  Sally  she  remained  to  the  day  of  her  death. 


A  GENUINE  START.  36 


CHAPTER  Y. 

A    GENUINE    START. 
Growth — Schooling — Beginnings  of  Human  Society  in  the  Backwoods. 

THERE  was  a  surprise  in  store  for  the  new  mother,  and  it  was 
by  no  means  an  unpleasant  one. 

As  soon  as  her  step-son's  bodily  wants  had  been  attended  to 
and  the  house  was  in  order  for  comfortable  living,  she  set  her- 
self at  work  to  discover  how  much  Abe  knew,  and  what.  He 
was  willing  enough  to  be  "  examined ; "  but  who  would  have 
expected  to  find  that  he  had  picked  up,  from  the  teachings  of 
Nancy  Lincoln  or  during  his  few  weeks  of  rough  schooling  in 
Kentucky,  both  reading  and  writing  ?  Not  that  he  could  show 
any  marked  proficiency  in  either,  but  enough  to  mark  him  at 
once  as  a  learner  of  more  than  common  capacity. 

He  had  learned  and  he  had  not  forgotten,  and  he  had  even 
made  some  use  of  his  acquirements ;  and  his  new  mother  deter- 
mined that  it  was  time  he  should  begin  to  add  to  them. 

Over  on  Little  Pigeon  Creek,  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the 
Lincoln  farm,  a  log  schoolhouse  had  been  built  by  the  settlers, 
near  the  grand  new  "  meeting-house,"  also  mainly  of  logs,  and 
the  two  were  witnesses  that  civilization  was  breaking  through 
the  darkness  of  the  Indiana  woods.  A  man  named  Hazel  Dor- 
sey  had  been  secured  as  schoolmaster,  and  it  was  said  of  him 
that  he  could  teach  reading  and  writing  and  arithmetic.  What 
more  could  be  asked  for  in  the  way  of  scholarship  ?  Little  in- 
deed by  the  bevy  of  boys  and  girls  who  were  sent  to  him  by 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  with  such  irregularity  as  was  made  compulsory 
by  their  many  home  duties. 

The  news  of  their  new  educational  prospects  did  not  bring 


36  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  same  meaning  to  all  of  them,  but  it  was  the  opening  of  a 
wide  gate  to  little  Abe.  He  was  growing  faster  than  e"ver 
now.  Since  the  new  arrivals,  filling  the  log-house  to  overflow- 
ing, he  and  Dennis  had  slept  in  the  loft,  climbing  to  it  by  a 
Ladder  of  wooden  pegs  driven  into  the  logs.  The  bed  was  a 
coarse  bag  filled  with  corn-husks,  and  was  a  narrow  one  for 
two  such  boys.  If  one  turned  over,  the  other  had  to.  And 
yet  there  were  now  three  boys  in  that  bed  every  night,  and 
two  of  them  were  beginning  to  crowd  each  other  in  a  terrible 
manner. 

Tirst,  there  was  Dennis  Hanks,  only  counting  for  one  boy, 
then  or  afterwards ;  there  beside  him  lay  Abraham  Lincoln, 
an  uncommonly  tall,  vigorous  body  of  a  boy  for  his  age :  and 
that  seemed  to  be  all  the  bed  contained.  But  inside  of  Abe 
was  another  boy,  taller,  larger  every  way,  to  whom  there  had 
now  arrived  a  beginning  of  almost  unlimited  "  growth." 

Nobody  could  guess  how  tall  that  inner  boy  might  yet  be- 
come, with  space  to  grow  in.  He  had  but  a  vague  idea  of  it, 
as  yet,  himself ;  but  it  was  much  that  he  had  any  idea  at  all. 

Quickly,  silently,  night  by  night  and  day  by  day,  he  deter- 
mined that  he  would  grow,  and  his  new  mother  continually 
and  lovingly  encouraged  him.  The  two  were  building  better 
than  they  knew,  and  the  whole  world,  for  ever  and  ever,  had  an 
interest  in  Mrs.  Lincoln's  womanly  perception  of  her  step-son's 
capacity  and  her  unselfish  efforts  to  afford  him  such  opportu- 
nities as  her  narrow  means  permitted. 

The  settlement  was  now  a  growing  one,  and  the  farms  were 
no  longer  so  far  apart.  A  man  named  Gentry  was  about  to 
open  a  country  store  only  a  mile  and  a  half,  or  so,  from  the 
Lincolns,  and  a  village  would  surely  gather  around  it ;  and  the 
store  and  village  were  also  to  be  a  school  for  Abe,  but  he  was 
to  go  to  Hazel  Dorsey's  first.  His  schoolhouse  was  a  queer 
enough  affair.  It  was  just  high  enough  inside  for  a  man  to 
stand  up  straight  in,  and  the  windows  were  fitted  with  greased 
paper  instead  of  glass. 


A   GENUINE  START.  37 

A  mile  and  a  half  is  no  great  distance  to  walk  to  such  a  school 
as  that,  if  children  have  shoes  and  the  snow  is  not  too  deep. 
Reading  and  writing  and  the  art  of  "  ciphering "  were  to  be 
walked  after,  and  these  were  treasures  none  too  common  in  the 
cabins  of  the  earlier  settlers  of  Indiana.  It  is  possible  that  Abe 
did  his  walking  more  easily  than  the  rest ;  but  it  is  matter  of 
record  that  before  long  he  could  "  spell  down"  all  the  other 
scholars  of  Hazel  Dorsey,  and  could  read  anything  he  could  lay 
his  hands  on. 

The  first  term  of  study  was  a  short  one,  for  the  winter 
melted  rapidly  away,  and  with  the  coming  of  settled  spring 
weather  the  school  had  to  be  closed,  that  teacher  and  pupils 
alike  might  turn  their  attention  to  planting  corn  and  potatoes. 

The  school  at  the  log  schoolhouse  on  Little  Pigeon  Creek 
was  closed  indeed,  and  would  not  open  again  until  another  win- 
ter ;  but  the  one  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  really  attending 
could  not  shut  its  door  at  all,  and  the  lessons  went  on  at  all 
hours. 

In  the  first  place,  the  body  which  contained  him  was  grow- 
ing at  such  a  tremendous  rate  that  he  was  a  man  in  height  be- 
fore he  was  fifteen  years  old,  and  by  the  time  he  passed  his 
seventeenth  birthday  he  was  as  tall  as  he  ever  would  be.  That 
is,  he  stood,  barefooted,  six  feet  and  four  inches  of  thin  and 
bony  awkwardness.  It  was  just  such  a  body,  doubtless,  as  was 
required  for  the  residence  of  such  a  boy  as  he  was.  There 
would  never  be  any  great  amount  of  mere  polish  or  elegance 
about  either  it  or  him ;  but  vast  stores  of  natural  strength  were 
forming  in  both,  capable  of  undergoing  severe  training  for  the 
work  before  them. 

Good  Mrs.  Lincoln  very  soon  despaired  of  keeping  Abraham 
in  clothes  that  would  fit  him.  It  was  not  so  much  that  he 
wore  things  out  too  rapidly,  as  that  he  grew  out  of  and  away 
from  whatever  she  could  put  upon  him.  There  was  yet  an- 
other difficulty.  Cloth  of  any  kind  was  scarce  and  dear,  and  a 
great  part  of  any  boy's  apparel  had  to  be  made  of  buckskin, 


38  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  that  is  a  material  which  can  hardly  cease  to  shrink  and 
shrivel.  So,  while  Abe's  long  legs  were  continually  lengthen- 
ing, his  buckskin  trowsers  were  continually  diminishing,  from 
day  to  day,  in  their  capacity  for  holding  or  covering  the  legs 
they  were  provided  for.  However  loose  they  might  be  when 
made,  a  few  wettings  in  dewy  corn-fields  and  rainy  woods,  or 
in  fording  the  creeks  and  sloughs,  would  surely  produce  a 
tighter  fit  than  any  tailor  could  plan. 

Stockings  were  out  of  the  question  at  any  time ;  and  when, 
on  special  occasions  or  in  cold  weather,  the  luxury  of  shoes  was 
to  be  indulged  in,  these  were  always  of  a  low-quartered  leather- 
saving  pattern.  All  shoemaking  among  the  settlers  was  done 
at  home  or  by  some  neighbor  who  had  picked  up  enough  of 
the  cobbler's  art  to  put  together  such  materials  as  might  be 
brought  to  him. 

There  was  apt  to  be  an  ample  length  of  bare  blue  ankles  be- 
tween the  lower  border  of  Abe's  tight  buckskins  and  the  tops 
of  his  home-made  shoes ;  and  this  was  a  peculiarity  of  his  ward- 
robe which  clung  to  him  for  years  and  years.  Nevertheless, 
except  for  growing  out  of  it  so  fast  and  so  far,  he  did  not  dif- 
fer much  in  his  apparel  from  any  other  boy  among  the  settlers 
near  Little  Pigeon  Creek.  Some  of  the  very  latest  arrivals 
might  wear  for  a  season  the  garments  they  came  in,  but  in  due 
course  of  wear  and  tear  these  were  sure  to  be  replaced  by  the 
regular  backwoods  uniform. 

The  boys  were  somewhat  worse  off  than  the  girls  with  refer- 
ence to  clothing,  for  a  gown  of  linsey-woolsey  or  of  homespun 
jeans,  no  matter  how  skimp  its  pattern  or  how  high  its  waist 
might  be,  could  be  provided  with  "tucks"  to  let  out,  from 
time  to  time,  like  the  reefs  of  a  sail.  The  forest  maidens,  how- 
ever, were  as  independent  as  their  brothers  in  the  matter  of 
shoes  and  stockings.  Strict  economy  required  that,  in  all  good 
weather  and  in  some  that  was  a  little  bad,  a  young  lady  going 
to  meeting  or  to  an  evening  party  should  carry  her  shoes  in 
her  hand  until  near  her  destination.  It  was  even  expected  that 


A   GENUINE  START.  39 

if,  in  the  course  of  an  evening,  there  should  be  over-much  danc- 
ing performed,  she  should  take  them  off  again,  lest  a  good  pair 
of  shoes  should  be  wasted  frivolously. 

Social  features  were  steadily  increasing  in  number  and  im- 
portance, now  there  were  so  many  neighbors  within  a  few 
miles  of  Mr.  Gentry's  store.  The  beginning  of  a  village  had 
been  fairly  made,  and  religious  meetings  of  several  kinds,  and 
parties  and  merry-makings  of  a  great  many  kinds,  broke  rapidly 
in  upon  the  old-time  monotony  of  frontier  life.  The  woods 
had  ceased  to  be  a  wilderness. 


40  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

BORROWED   TREASURES. 

The  Art  of  Story-Telling — The  Wonders  in  Books — The  Uses  of  Written 
Words. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  just  the  kind  of  boy  to  speedily 
make  the  acquaintance  of  every  new  family  as  soon  as  he 
heard  of  its  arrival. 

It  was  not  only  that  he  was  of  an  eminently  sociable  disposi- 
tion. His  few  weeks  of  training  under  Hazel  Dorsey  had  once 
more  brought  to  his  mind  a  great  and  mysterious  fact  of 
human  life,  and  its  meaning  was  taking  feverish  possession  of 
him.  There  were  books ! 

He  had  seen  a  very  few,  and  knew  but  little  about  the  man- 
ner of  their  making ;  and  even  less  definite  were  his  ideas  of 
what  might  be  in  them.  There  was  something  weird  and 
wonderful  in  their  very  existence,  and  there  was  no  telling 
what  wonder  of  a  book  a  new  family  might  own  and  bring 
with  them.  He  already  knew  of  men  who  had  brought  whole 
libraries ;  two,  three,  four,  perhaps  half  a  dozen  books  gath- 
ered under  one  roof.  It  was  worth  while  to  walk  a  few  miles, 
and  then  to  talk  around  and  bear  a  helping  hand  at  chopping  or 
something,  to  make  acquaintance  with  human  beings  from 
whom  such  a  treasure  as  a  bound  volume  might  perhaps  be 
afterwards  borrowed. 

The  imprinted  learning  of  the  backwoods,  fact  and  fiction, 
history  and  humor,  travels  from  memory  to  memory  by  word 
of  mouth.  Abe  already  knew  and  could  tell  more  stories  of 
all  sorts  than  any  other  scholar  of  Hazel  Dorsey ;  but  he  came 
home  one  day  from  a  borrowing  expedition  with  a  book  that 
could  beat  him  completely.  He  had  found  a  copy  of  ^Esops> 


SORROWED   TREASURES.  41 

Fables,  and  he  was  to  learn  from  it  how  to  put  sharp  points  to 
his  stories,  at  need,  and  make  invaluable  weapons  of  them. 
Before  he  had  read  that  book  through  more  than  a  score  of  times, 
he  could  make  over  into  an  arrowy  "  fable,"  with  a  moral  of 
some  kind  or  a  sting  at  the  end  of  it,  almost  any  anecdote  or 
incident  with  which  his  memory  was  stored,  and  JEsop  had 
been  his  schoolmaster  in  the  subtle  art  of  doing  it  well. 

A  good  story-teller  was  an  important  public  acquisition,  and 
Abe's  popularity  was  assured  in  all  the  wide  and  growing 
circle  of  his  acquaintances. 

The  Fables  were  a  borrowed  book,  and  had  to  be  returned  in 
time ;  but  before  long  their  place  was  filled  by  a  story-teller  of 
a  very  different  kind,  sure  to  leave  behind  him  an  equally  in- 
delible mark  on  the  mind  of  his  young  reader. 

Abe's  new  prize  came  near  getting  him  into  disgrace  for 
neglecting  his  share  of  the  growing  corn.  How  could  a  boy 
do  justice  to  a  corn-field  with  such  a  treat  awaiting  him  in  his 
mother's  cupboard  at  the  house  ? 

An  English  tinker  had  written  it :  a  low  fellow  who  spent 
many  years  of  his  life  in  jail  for  using  his  tongue  too  freely. 
His  name  was  John  Bunyan,  and  he  could  hardly  have  been 
poorer  if  he  had  settled  in  Indiana  before  it  became  a  State. 
Still,  he  had  written  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  and  Abe  Lincoln 
had  now  borrowed  a  stray  copy  of  it.  Before  that  book  went 
home,  Abe  knew  it  almost  by  heart.  It  was  impossible  to  do 
that  without  learning  a  great  deal,  even  if  a  dull  and  unim- 
pressible  boy  had  been  the  learner ;  and  the  lessons  taught  by 
Bunyan  through  that  marvelous  pilgrimage  were  the  very 
lessons  Abe  Lincoln's  education  thus  far  had  left  him  in  need 
of.  All  the  life  around  him,  from  his  cradle,  had  been  and 
still  was  coarse,  rude,  earthy,  sensuous,  to  the  last  degree  sor- 
did and  unspiritual. 

Other  books  turned  up  here  and  there,  and  the  family 
Bible  at  home  was  an  unfailing  resource  to  Abe  for  every- 
thing but  theology. 


42  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  summer  and  fall  went  by  and  winter  came,  but  no 
school  came  with  it.  For  some  reason  Hazel  Dorsey  failed  to 
gather  again  his  scattered  pupils,  and  it  was  a  full  year  more 
before  the  little  log  seminary  could  renew  its  usefulness. 
Then  came  a  new  teacher  with  many  new  ways.  Mr.  Andrew 
Crawford  saw  at  once  that  the  young  people  who  came  troop- 
ing around  him  were  in  need  of  other  things  as  well  as  reading 
and  writing,  or  even  arithmetic.  His  own  scholarship  was 
equal  to  reasonable  demands,  and  he  could  carry  them  as  far  as 
the  "  rule  of  three,"  but  he  could  appease  no  hunger  for  any 
higher  mathematics.  Such  merely  ornamental  branches  as 
grammar  and  geography  were  not  insisted  on  by  the  parents 
who  employed  him,  but  he  was  willing  to  add,  of  his  own  free 
gift,  other  and  valuable  instruction.  From  the  outset  he  be- 
gan to  teach  them  "  manners,"  and  no  such  thing  had  been 
heard  of  before  in  all  that  settlement.  Every  pupil  was  taught 
and  drilled  in  the  proper  method  of  getting  into  a  room  and 
getting  out  of  it,  with  all  the  kindred  niceties  of  making  intro- 
ductions and  acquaintanceships.  There  was  abundant  fun  in 
it  for  the  boys  and  girls ;  and  the  next  best  thing  to  that  was 
Mr.  Crawford's  great  attention  to  the  correctness  of  their 
spelling. 

It  was  not  long  before  Abe's  book-training  began  to  show 
its  fruits.  He  was  acknowledged  to  be  the  leader  of  the  school 
in  the  matter  of  putting  together  the  right  letters  to  make  up 
a  word.  He  became,  in  fact,  a  sort  of  good-natured  walking 
dictionary  for  the  rest,  and  it  was  at  times  needful  to  turn  so 
willing  a  prompter  out  of  doors  during  contested  matches  or 
perplexing  recitations. 

One  day  the  spelling-class  embraced  nearly  the  entire  school, 
and  Abe  had  been  duly  turned  out,  after  a  terrific  threat  from  Mr. 
Crawford  that  he  would  keep  his  victims  there  all  night  if  they 
failed  to  give  the  correct  spelling  of  the  hard  word  "  defied." 
There  was  indeed  work  before  a  mob  of  young  people  every 
soul  of  whom  was  possessed  with  a  conviction  that  the  verbal 


BORROWED  TREASURES.  43 

stumbling-block  had  a  "  y"  in  it.  All  around  the  class  it  went, 
and  half-way  around  again  but  just  as  it  reached  a  favorite 
of  his  named  Polly  Roby,  there  was  Abe's  head  at  the  open 
window  behind  the  master,  with  a  finger  in  one  eye  and  a  sug- 
gestive wink  in  the  other. 

Polly's  quick  wits  caught  the  hint ;  the  awful  word  was  con- 
quered in  a  second,  and  Andrew  Crawford  was  sure  there  had 
been  no  unfair  assistance  given  by  Abraham  Lincoln. 

There  was  one  other  department  of  that  primitive  schooling 
in  which  Abe  stood  all  alone.  He  was  the  only  scholar  who 
insisted  on  turning  his  'writing-lessons  into  any  kind  of  "  com- 
positions." It  was  altogether  out  of  Andrew  Crawford's  line 
and  beyond  him.  He  would  not  have  done  any  such  thing 
himself,  and  he  would  not  encourage  in  wild  literary  extrava- 
gance a  lot  of  children  whose  lif  e-business  was  to  be  the  raising 
of  corn  and  the  making  of  pork.  Perhaps  even  Abe  might 
not  have  undertaken  it  so  very  early  if  he  had  not  found  a 
work  of  common  humanity  calling  for  the  use  of  his  pen. 

There  was  not  an  animal  in  the  woods  for  which  he  had  not 
a  kindly  feeling.  Even  the  woodchucks  he  dug  out  of  their 
holes  were  in  a  manner  his  neighbors,  and  the  land-turtles  got 
out  of  his  way,  so  far  as  any  danger  to  them  was  concerned, 
mainly  because  he  might  carelessly  step  on  them  with  his  im- 
mense feet.  The  other  boys  were  not  by  any  means  so  tender- 
hearted, and  a  terrapin  marching  away  from  some  of  them 
with  a  live  coal  on  his  back  offered  a  fine  subject  to  Abe  for 
an  essay  upon  "  Cruelty  to  Animals." 

It  was  first  given  orally  to  the  young  savages  who  were  mal- 
treating the  helpless  terrapin.  Then  it  came  out  in  slowly 
written  sentences  in  Abe's  copy-book.  Then  it  grew  and  wid- 
ened into  a  full-sized  "  composition,"  and  Abe's  career  as  a 
writer  had  fairly  begun.  He  had  learned  to  spell  words,  and 
now  he  had  discovered  for  himself  the  great  art  of  making 
them  stand  in  effective  order  upon  paper.  Still,  paper  was 
scarce,  and  it  was  necessary  to  be  exceedingly  economical  in 


44  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  use  of  it.  No  word  could  go  down  upon  such  precious 
material  until  the  writer  felt  very  sure  it  was  the  best  one  he 
could  use  in  that  place,  and  no  more  could  be  employed  than 
were  needed  to  do  the  work  in  hand  and  express  the  exact 
meaning  intended.  The  scarcity  of  paper,  therefore,  was  itself 
an  excellent  teacher,  continually  forcing  the  young  essayist  to 
avoid  the  most  common  fault  of  all  writers,  trained  and  un- 
trained. 

There  were  ways  to  be  invented,  however,  of  overcoming 
the  paper  difficulty,  in  part,  and  of  still  obtaining  an  idea  of 
how  any  given  sentence  would  look  in  written  characters. 
There  was  the  great  wooden  shovel  in  the  chimney-corner 
every  night.  The  surface  of  it  could  be  shaved  clean  with  his 
father's  "drawing-knife,"  and  then,  by  the  light  of  the  fire, 
aided  by  that  of  a  small  torch  of  hickory  or  birch  bark,  the 
whole  face  of  the  shovel  could  be  covered  with  figures  and  let- 
ters. By  day  and  out  of  doors  a  basswood  shingle  would  an- 
swer the  same  purpose,  with  a  piece  of  charcoal  for  a  crayon. 
A  matter  could  be  written  and  rewritten,  and  anything  pro- 
nounced worthy  of  preservation  could  be  carefully  transferred 
with  pen  and  ink  to  the  pages  of  an  old  blank-book  which  was 
one  of  Abe's  choicest  treasures.  Not  all  the  contents  of  that 
miscellaneous  collection  were  original,  for  it  contained  also 
copious  quotations  from  every  volume  its  owner  managed  to 
borrow. 

More  of  these  were  now  coming  within  reach,  from  time  to 
time.  Some  of  the  books  themselves  were  a  kind  of  human 
being.  No  other  settler  came  into  that  neighborhood  in  all 
those  days  who  was  more  a  real  man,  come  to  a  real  new  coun- 
try, than  was  Robinson  Crusoe,  and  Abe  learned  most 
thoroughly  all  the  ingenious  methods  of  that  wonderful  cast- 
away in  dealing  with  dangers  and  difficulties. 

Blackhawk  and  his  warriors  were  only  a  few  days'  march 
northwestward,  and,  although  there  was  no  "  man  Friday"  to  be 
obtained  among  them,  the  print  of  a  moccasined  foot  in  the 


BORROWED  TREASURES.  45 

mud  would  still  have  been  a  thing  to  cause  alarm  and  astonish- 
ment, if  found. 

Yet  another  good  arrival  brought  with  him  a  "  History  of  the 
United  States,"  and  this  afforded  abundant  employment  for  the 
fire-shovel  and  the  scrap-book. 

There  were  other  wonders  of  literature  which  were  not  to  be 
borrowed,  but  to  be  read  by  the  friendly  light  of  the  fireplaces 
from  which  they  could  not  be  carried  away.  Among  these 
was  a  small  book  which  told  of  more  wonderful  achievements 
than  even  the  History,  for  it  was  Sindbad  the  Sailor's  own  ac- 
count of  his  perilous  voyages. 

There  was  teaching  in  that  book  of  a  specially  important 
nature,  for  it  told  of  lands  and  peoples  heretofore  not  so  much 
as  dreamed  of  by  the  overgrown  stepson  of  Mrs.  Sally  Lincoln. 
It  helped  Robinson  Crusoe  to  make  the  world  wider  for  him ; 
and  when  spring  came  and  there  were  grass  and  dry  leaves  in 
the  woods  to  lie  down  upon,  he  could  loaf  under  the  trees  and 
dream  of  ships  and  oceans  and  far-away  countries  where  all 
things  were  so  different  from  the  life  he  had  known  in  Ken- 
tucky and  Indiana. 

He  was  now  fifteen  years  old,  and  of  course  he  had  heard  of 
George  Washington.  He  knew  by  oral  traditions,  vague  and 
fragmentary,  that  the  Father  of  his  Country  had  at  one  time 
lived  in  the  backwoods  and  had  fought  hard  battles  with  the 
Indians.  His  delight  was  great,  therefore,  when  one  day  old 
Josiah  Crawford,  the  crustiest  of  his  neighbors,  consented  to 
let  him  carry  home  a  copy  of  Weems's  "  life  of  "Washington." 
It  was  a  small,  thin  book  in  a  sheepskin  cover,  but  no  other  or 
greater  biographer  has  ever  dealt  with  the  deeds  of  any  hero 
in  a  spirit  of  more  exuberant  enthusiasm.  It  was  slow,  intense, 
instructive  reading.  Each  page  had  to  be  dwelt  upon  and  gone 
over  and  over,  and  there  were  copious  notes  to  be  made  on 
wood  and  copied  into  the  scrap-book.  Bedtime  was  a  hateful 
intruder  upon  such  delight  as  that,  and  it  was  hard  to  be  forced 
away  from  it  and  compelled  to  lift  himself,  peg  by  peg,  into 


46  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  dark  loft  above,  and  separated  even  from  the  very  paper 
and  binding. 

Night  after  night,  with  special  care,  the  book  was  deposited 
upon  a  little  shelf  against  the  wall  of  the  room  below.  There 
were  two  stout  pegs  in  the  log,  and  a  shingle  laid  across  them 
made  the  shelf.  The  book  should  have  been  in  safety  there,  if 
anywhere.  It  was  a  pity,  however,  that  Abe  should  have 
failed  to  examine  the  mud  "  chinking"  of  those  logs,  for  it  had 
fallen  out  just  above  the  shelf,  leaving  a  crack  which  was  full 
of  peril  to  literature.  There  came  a  night,  when  he  and 
Dennis  Hanks  were  sound  asleep,  that  was  full  of  wind  and 
rain.  Gust  after  gust  drove  in  the  flying  water  through  the 
cranny  in  the  wall,  and  the  shelf  was  flooded  and  the  precious 
book  was  drowned. 

When  morning  came,  there  lay  the  soaked  and  ruined  relics 
of  the  only  "  Life  of  Washington"  in  all  that  part  of  Indiana, 
It  was  of  little  use  to  dry  the  leaves  in  the  sun.  Abe  did  so 
with  sorrowful  care,  and  then  he  bore  them  home  to  their  owner ; 
but  old  Josiah  refused  to  receive  them. 

"  Keckon  I'll  have  to  make  it  good  somehow,"  said  Abe, 
mournfully.  "  What's  it  wuth  ? " 

"  Seventy-five  cents ;  and  I  don't  know  whar  I'll  git  another." 

He  might  as  well  have  said  seventy-five  thousand,  and  Abe 
very  frankly  told  him  so. 

"  Well,  Abe,"  said  old  Josiah,  at  last,  "  seein'  it's  you,  I  tell 
ye  what  I'll  do.  You  pull  fodder  for  me  three  days,  at  twenty- 
five  cents  a  day,  and  I'll  call  it  squar." 

"  I'll  do  it,  and  I'll  jest  keep  what  thar  is  left  of  the  book." 

It  had  been  a  well-thumbed,  dog's-eared  affair,  and  Crawford 
had  sold  it  to  Abe,  after  this  fashion,  at  a  remarkably  high 
price.  So  high,  in  fact,  that  Abe's  remorse  did  not  prevent 
his  sense  of  justice  from  rebelling  even  while  he  consented  to 
come  and  pull  the  fodder.  He  and  Josiah  Crawford  were  never 
more  good  friends,  and  more  than  a  little  good-tempered  "  get- 
ting even"  had  to  be  performed  for  a  long  time  afterwards. 


FRONTIER  TRAINING.  47 


CHAPTEE  VII. 

FRONTIER     TRAINING-. 

Oratorical  Beginnings — Frontier  Politics — Hiring  Out — A  Wedding  and  a 
Funeral — Studies  among  Plain  People — A  Glimpse  into  Law. 

Now  that  there  were  so  many  settlers,  the  religious  gather- 
ings at  the  Little  Pigeon  Creek  meeting-house  became  more 
frequent.  Whenever  there  was  preaching  of  any  kind,  Mrs. 
Sally  Lincoln  was  sure  to  go,  and  to  insist  on  taking  her  hus- 
band with  her.  It  made  small  difference  to  Tom,  indeed,  to 
what  sect  the  preacher  of  the  day  might  belong.  He  himself 
had  been,  in  his  day,  a  member  of  several  sects,  and  not  a  very 
shining  ornament  to  either  of  them.  No  change  whatever  was 
required  when  he  moved  from  one  into  another. 

The  young  people  were  frequently  left  at  home ;  but  they 
had  preaching  among  them  nevertheless,  albeit  with  more  of 
rough  fun  than  profitable  doctrine  in  the  sermons.  No  sooner 
were  their  elders  out  of  sight  among  the  trees  than  the  family 
Bible  would  come  down  from  its  shelf,  and  Abe  knew  its  con- 
tents quite  well  enough  to  find  any  text  he  wanted. 

"  Now,  girls,"  he  would  say,  "  you  and  John  and  Dennis  do 
the  cryin'.  I'll  do  the  preachin'." 

A  hymn  or  so  was  given  out  and  sung,  and  the  sermon  was 
only  too  likely  to  be  a  taking  off  of  the  style  and  eccentricities 
of  some  traveling  exhorter  they  had  heard  at  the  meeting- 
house. Not  always,  indeed ;  for  Abe  once  preached  a  sermon, 
on  his  favorite  theme  of  "  cruelty  to  animals,"  which  was  re- 
membered for  many  years  by  one  little  girl,  a  neighbor,  who 
was  that  day  a  member  of  his  childish  congregation. 

The  born  orator  within  him  was  coming  to  the  surface,  and 


48  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

preaching  in  the  house  on  Sundays  led  very  naturally  to  stump- 
speaking  in  the  fields  on  other  days  in  times  of  political  ex- 
citement. Abe  began  his  training  in  that  school  before  he  was 
sixteen  years  old.  He  advanced  so  rapidly  that  before  long  he 
could  draw  the  hands  in  a  corn-field  away  from  their  husking 
at  any  moment  by  the  droll  originality  of  his  boyish  addresses. 

It  was  a  positive  relief  to  a  young  fellow  who  was  thinking 
so  much  and  so  hard  to  talk  out  some  part  of  his  internal  fer- 
mentation. Political  affairs  occupied  a  large  share  of  the 
thoughts  and  conversations  of  the  Pigeon  Creek  people,  and 
were  attended  to  from  house  to  house  as  the  best  possible  ex- 
cuse for  a  visit  and  chat. 

A  whole  family  could  go  over  and  make  a  call  upon  another 
family,  and  visitors  were  always  welcome.  There  was  the 
freest  hospitality.  If  there  were  not  chairs  and  benches 
enough,  the  floor  was  an  excellent  place  for  man  or  woman  to 
sit  down  upon.  If  apples  were  scarce,  or  if  the  supply  had 
given  out,  a  plate  of  raw  potatoes  or  turnips,  nicely  washed, 
could  be  offered  instead,  with  a  bottle  of  whisky :  and  there 
was  the  very  soul  of  liberality  in  the  offering. 

There  was  one  feature  of  frontier  hospitality,  indeed,  to 
which  Abraham  Lincoln  never  at  any  time  took  kindly.  He 
could  not  bring  himself  to  the  use  of  any  description  of  intoxi- 
cating liquor,  and  in  due  time  he  both  spoke  and  wrote  against 
what  he  perceived  to  be  a  social  curse  and  scourge.  Such  a 
body  as  his  might  perhaps  have  been  persuaded  to  accept  the 
common  custom,  but  the  clear  common-sense  of  his  inner  boy 
rebelled  and  prevented  him  from  acquiring  a  taste  for  any- 
thing containing  alcohol. 

Body  and  mind,  he  was  now  growing  with  tremendous 
rapidity ;  but  the  lessons  he  was  receiving  did  not  come  by  way 
of  any  professional  school-teacher  after  he  triumphed  over 
"  manners"  and  the  spelling-book  under  Andrew  Crawford. 

One  lesson  of  life  began  with  a  wedding  in  the  old  log- 
house,  when  Nancy,  or  rather  Sally,  Hanks  Lincoln  reached  her 


FRONTIER  TRAINING.  49 

eighteenth  year.  It  was  the  merriest  day  the  place  had  seen 
since  Tom  Lincoln  halted  his  tired  horses  on  the  knoll  and 
planned  his  first  "  pole-shelter."  Sally  became  Mrs.  Grigsby, 
and  left  her  father's  cabin  to  live  in  that  of  her  husband. 

It  was  not  too  far  away  for  Abe  to  make  frequent  visits  to 
his  married  sister ;  but  within  the  year  the  young  bride  was 
removed  to  a  more  distant  country,  and  Aaron  Grigsby  was  a 
widower. 

Abraham  was  now  the  sole  remaining  child  of  Mrs.  Nancy 
Hanks  Lincoln,  but  he  was  as  a  favorite  son  to  his  loving  step- 
mother. The  shadows  grew  deeper  upon  his  queer,  strongly 
marked  face  whenever  it  was  in  repose,  but  there  was  some- 
what less  of  that  than  formerly.  The  great  sociability  of  his, 
nature  was  called  into  more  frequent  activity  as  time  went  on.. 
His  love  of  fun  and  his  peculiar  capacity  for  making  it  ren- 
dered him  a  welcome  visitor  throughout  the  scattered  settle- 
ment. He  was  liked  by  all  women  old  and  young  for  his  kind- 
liness, and  he  was  the  most  popular  of  all  the  idlers  who  strolled 
from  their  cabins  and  corn-fields  into  what  had  now  become  the 
village  of  Gentryville.  Idling,  in  fact,  at  all  seasons  when  no 
work  is  pressing,  is  one  of  the  fixed  institutions  of  a  new  coun- 
try, and  this  may  in  part  be  owing  to  the  amount  and  nature 
of  the  compulsory  hard  work. 

As  for  Tom  Lincoln,  the  older  he  grew  the  stronger  became 
his  tendency  to  shift  the  drudgeries  of  his  farm  upon  Abe  and 
John  Johnston  and  Dennis  Hanks,  but  his  thrifty  and  stirring 
wife  insisted  that  the  work  should  be  done  by  some  one.  Abe 
did  his  duty  by  her,  as  she  affectionately  boasted  in  after-years, 
but  he  was  now  developing  a  strong  preference  for  working 
upon  any  other  piece  of  ground  than  the  Lincoln  farm.  He 
chose  to  hire  himself  out  to  other  farmers  for  any  kind  of 
labor,  even  if  his  father  got  most  of  the  benefit  by  receiving 
his  wages  for  him.  His  services  were  always  in  request.  He 
could  chop  more  wood,  handle  more  hay,  husk  more  corn,  and 
lift  a  heavier  weight  than  any  other  young  fellow  to  be  had 


50  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

for  the  hiring,  and  he  was  perpetually  good-humored  and 
obliging.  He  was  a  favorite  with  all  children,  and  their 
mothers  liked  to  have  around  the  house  a  "  hand"  who,  after 
his  field-work  was  over,  was  equally  ready  to  'tend  baby,  go  for 
a  bucket  of  water,  tell  a  story,  or  recite  any  required  amount 
of  poetry.  His  memory  held  everything  tenaciously  and  in 
condition  for  instant  use.  It  was  stored  not  only  with  the 
miscellaneous  contents  of  his  scrap-book  and  with  such  pas- 
sages of  prose  or  verse  as  had  impressed  him  in  his  reading, 
but  also  with  every  telling  jingle  he  had  heard.  If  he  went 
to  meeting,  he  could  afterwards  repeat  the  sermon  almost  word 
for  word.  The  very  narrowness  of  his  singular  course  of  study 
had  put  his  naturally  good  memory  into  excellent  training,  and 
he  did  not  as  yet  know  so  many  things,  acquired  either  by  sight 
or  hearing,  that  his  mind  had  not  ample  space  and  elbow-room 
for  all  of  them. 

From  house  to  house  and  from  farm  to  farm  the  tall  strip- 
ling went  the  rounds  as  he  might  be  hired,  little  thinking  or 
caring  how  thorough  a  knowledge  he  was  by  that  means  ob- 
taining of  the  character  of  the  different  classes  of  people  who 
-were  filling  up  the  great  West.  He  could  but  study  them  un- 
consciously as  he  went  and  came,  and  he  was  learning  more 
about  them  than  some  of  them  knew  about  themselves.  He 
knew  from  whence  they  had  emigrated,  and  how  people  lived 
in  those  distant  communities.  He  became  familiar  with  habits, 
prejudices,  superstitions,  religious  beliefs,  political  ideas,  social 
distinctions,  varied  hopes  and  fears,  and  aspirations  and  disap- 
pointments. He  learned,  too,  somewhat  of  different  national- 
ities and  the  races  of  which  these  settlers  were  born  or  had 
descended,  and  to  what  extent  they  had  become  intelligent 
members  of  a  self-governing  community. 

He  could  not  know  at  the  time  through  what  a  school  he 
was  passing,  but  every  step  of  his  after-life  proved  that  not 
any  of  those  hard  lessons-by-the-way,  so  useless  to  another  man, 
had  been  wasted  upon  him.  There  was  no  manner  of  miracle 


FRONTIER  TRAINING.  51 

in  his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  thoughts  and  ways  and  feel- 
ings of  "  the  plain  people." 

He  began  now  to  seek  and  find  drier  and  more  difficult 
studies.  A  friend  of  his  named  David  Turnham  had  been 
made  "  acting  constable"  of  the  settlement,  and  had  purchased 
a  copy  of  the  "  Revised  Statutes  of  Indiana"  to  guide  him  in 
the  duties  of  his  office.  David  was  firm  in  the  idea  that  a  con- 
stable should  always  have  his  printed  instructions  at  hand  for 
reference,  and  the  book  was  not  to  be  borrowed,  but  Abe  was 
welcome  to  come  to  the  owner's  house  and  read  the  laws.  It 
was  very  different  reading  from  Robinson  Crusoe  or  "Weems's 
"Washington,  but  it  was  pored  over  none  the  less  persistently. 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  beginning  his  legal  studies,  but  with 
only  a  faint  conception  of  what  a  lawyer  might  be.  Getting 
law  from  such  a  book  as  that  was  something  like  getting 
wheat-flour  or  corn-meal  from  a  horse-mill,  such  as  they  all 
resorted  to  on  Pigeon  Creek.  There  was  but  one  within 
reach ;  and  when  a  farmer  went  to  it  with  a  load  of  grain,  he 
set  his  own  horses  at  the  work  of  turning  the  mill  when  his 
turn  came.  A  full  day's  hard  toil  turned  out  about  fifteen 
bushels,  without  any  "bolting."  All  that  kind  of  finishing 
was  to  be  done  at  home.  Still,  it  was  better  than  a  mere 
hand-mill,  as  that  had  been  an  improvement  on  the  primitive 
mortar  and  pestle.  Some  of  Abe's  law-study,  indeed,  must 
more  have  resembled  the  work  of  the  mortar  and  pestle,  and 
all  results  were  much  like  the  flour  from  the  horse-mill.  A 
kind  of  learning  was  in  them,  but  all  unsifted,  and  his  strong 
memory  retained  the  veriest  "  bran"  of  the  statutes  of  Indiana. 

Abe  was  less  and  less  at  home  nowadays,  but  his  loving 
stepmother  by  no  means  lost  sight  of  him.  She  had  strong 
hopes  and  convictions  concerning  his  future,  and  she  encour- 
aged him  continually.  She  well  deserved  the  hearty  affection 
with  which  he  accepted  her  entirely  as  his  "  mother."  He 
gave  her  so  much  and  so  steadily,  through  all  that  time,  that 
when,  many  long  years  afterwards,  her  great,  gloomy,  fun-lov- 


UBRARV 


52  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ing  boy  had  lived  out  his  useful  life,  and  a  whole  people  stood 
in  tears  around  his  coffin,  she  was  able  to  say,  between  her 
own  sobs,  that  he  never  gave  her  an  unkind  word  or  look  or 
one  solitary  act  of  disobedience. 

So  it  was  a  woman,  and  a  "  mother,"  who  gave  him  his  most 
important  help  during  those  his  earlier  school-days,  and  to 
whom  he  was  most  largely  indebted  for  the  good  use  of  all  the 
rest.  His  development  could  not  have  been  the  same  with  her 
good  work  omitted. 


SO  Y-OF-ALL-  WORK,  53 


CHAPTEE  VIIL 

BOY-OF-ALL-WORK. 

Toil,  Fun  and  Frolic— Books  and  Speaking  Matches — A  Severe  Lesson  in 
Caste — Practical  Teachings  on  Temperance — 1825. 

THE  Lincoln  cabin  was  a  small  one.  So  large  a  family  could 
hardly  make  themselves  comfortable  in  one  room  and  a  loft, 
now  that  its  younger  members  were  so  fast  growing  towards 
maturity.  The  farm,  too,  was  limited  in  its  capacity,  and  so 
there  were  reasons  why  Abe  was  permitted  to  have  his  own 
way  in  the  matter  of  "  working  out."  His  longest  hiring  at 
any  one  place  began  in  the  year  1825,  when  he  went  to  work 
for  James  Taylor,  who  owned  the  ferry  across  the  Ohio  Kiver, 
at  the  mouth  of  Anderson's  Creek.  There  were  books  to  be 
had  at  Taylor's,  and  new  ideas  were  to  be  picked  up  from  the 
people  of  all  sorts  who  from  time  to  time  were  passengers  in 
the  rude  ferryboat. 

There  were  duties  for  Abe  in  great  abundance,  for  he  was 
man-of-all-work  about  the  house  and  farm.  Perhaps  the  most 
distasteful  of  all  was  grinding  corn  in  a  hand-mill,  or  grating 
the  green  ears  for  Mrs.  Taylor's  cookery.  His  hatred  of 
cruelty  to  animals  did  not  at  all  stand  in  the  way  of  his  being 
a  good  hand  at  butchering  hogs  in  "  killing  time."  His  feel- 
ings, however,  or  his  books,  or  his  many  industries,  or  all  com- 
bined, prevented  him  from  forming  any  taste  for  hunting. 
Game  was  so  plentiful  that  the  smaller  varieties  were  a  pest 
to  the  farmers.  They  were  slaughtered  to  get  rid  of  them, 
rather  than  for  the  table.  Deer,  bears,  wild  turkeys,  were 
made  to  be  eaten,  and  formed  an  important  part  of  any  man's 
calculations  for  his  supply  of  provisions  for  the  year.  Wild- 


54  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

cats  and  even  panthers  were  still  sufficiently  numerous  to 
render  uncomfortable  at  times  the  idea  of  lonely  walks  after 
nightfall. 

It  was  a  wild  country  if  judged  by  standards  accepted  in 
older  communities,  but  a  change  was  creeping  over  the  ways 
and  manners  of  the  Gentryville  and  Pigeon  Creek  settlers. 
They  were  becoming  somewhat  crowded  by  each  other.  Here 
and  there  were  farms  whose  borders  actually  touched,  and 
there  was  much  more  fencing  required  than  in  former  days. 
There  was  greater  sociability,  of  course,  and  there  were  larger 
gatherings  at  the  meeting-house  on  Sundays.  Eight  along 
with  these,  in  growing  size  and  frequency,  came  the  corn- 
shuckings,  log-rollings,  chopping-bees,  shooting-matches,  dances, 
and  other  contrivances  for  getting  the  neighbors  together  for 
a  frolic. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  the  boy  to  willingly  miss  a  frolic 
of  any  kind,  and  as  a  general  thing  he  was  pretty  sure  of  in- 
vitations, for  he  had  faculties  and  accomplishments  which  were 
in  demand.  To  his  old-time  capacity  as  a  story-teller  he  was  now 
adding  a  turn  for  satire  and  travesty,  which  now  and  then  got 
him  into  difficulties,  for  his  love  of  fun  forbade  him  to  spare 
anything  worth  taking  off,  and  his  reverence  was  as  yet  an  un- 
developed part  of  his  character.  Even  in  carefully  listening 
to  a  sermon,  he  was  too  apt  to  remember  with  it  every  oddity 
and  eccentricity  of  the  preacher,  and  the  whole  would  soon  be 
reproduced,  with  ludicrous  precision  of  gesture  and  intonation, 
before  the  uproarious  congregations  at  the  merry-makings. 
There  was  only  too  much  that  was  odd  and  even  grotesque  in 
the  frontier  preaching  of  that  day,  good  and  useful  as  were 
some  of  the  preachers,  and  the  irreverent  mimic  had  ample 
matter  for  his  performances. 

From  reciting  the  poetry  of  others  there  was  but  a  step  to 
an  attempt  at  manufacturing  verses  on  his  own  account.  It 
was  not  long  before  the  ambitious  boy  of  all  work  and  de- 
vourer  of  all  books  made  for  himself  a  local  reputation  as  a 


BO  Y-  OF- ALL-  WORE.  65 

rhymster.  Almost  any  story,  or  any  satirical  attack  upon  an 
obnoxious  neighbor,  could  be  given  a  better  point  or  a  sharper 
sting  by  being  thrown  into  the  shape  of  a  rude  but  jingling  bal- 
lad. It  was  easy  enough,  moreover,  to  secure  an  attentive 
audience  for  that  kind  of  "  border  minstrelsy." 

Excepting  religious  services  and  funerals,  there  could  hardly 
be  a  gathering  of  such  a  population  without  a  part  of  the  en- 
tertainment consisting  of  trials  of  bodily  strength  and  skill 
among  the  younger  and  even  the  middle-aged  men.  Into 
these  Abe  entered  with  enthusiasm.  There  were  many  who 
could  beat  him  with  the  rifle,  but  it  began  to  be  discovered 
that  as  he  attained  his  full  size,  and  his  tough  muscles  filled 
out  a  little  upon  his  bony  frame,  the  rivals  were  fewer  and 
fewer  who  could  hope  to  excel  him  at  wrestling,  jumping,  throw- 
ing the  "  maul "  or  heavy  hammer,  or  in  lifting  a  dead  weight. 

Physical  power  was  of  value  for  many  reasons.  The  men 
upon  whom  his  wit  turned  the  laugh  were  not  always  con- 
tented to  let  the  matter  pass  as  a  joke ;  but  even  the  readiest 
of  rough-and-tumble  fighters  was  less  prompt  to  quarrel  with  a 
young  fellow  who  could  laughingly  pick  up  three  or  four 
times  his  weight  and  walk  off  with  it.  Nevertheless,  every 
now  and  then,  and  even  when  trying  to  act  as  a  peacemaker, 
Abe  was  sure  to  find  a  fight  on  his  hands.  The  cheapness  and 
abundance  of  whisky  was  generally  at  the  bottom  of  such 
troubles ;  and  they  served  him  a  good  turn,  by  impressing  him 
more  and  more  deeply  with  the  fact,  then  generally  ignored, 
that  a  drinking  or  drunken  man  has  little  prospect  of  success 
in  any  competition  with  one  who  is  wise  enough  to  let  drink 
alone.  Frolic  as  much  as  he  might,  and  be  never  so  popular  at 
all  merry-makings,  his  somber  and  serious  "  inner  man"  was 
master  always,  and  sure  to  keep  him  steady.  As  for  mere 
trials  of  strength,  even  if  forced  upon  him  by  the  anger  of 
others,  they  did  but  help  him  to  acquire  an  exhaustless  fund  of 
confidence  in  his  ability  to  pull  himself  and  his  friends  safely 
through  any  difficulty  which  might  be  brought  upon  them. 


56  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

More  books  were  coming  now.  A  man  named  Jones  opened 
an  opposition  store  at  Gentryville,  and  he  took  a  personal  lik- 
ing to  Abe  Lincoln.  Apart  from  mere  friendship,  he  saw  that 
so  popular  a  youngster  could  not  fail  to  attract  customers,  and 
so,  for  a  time  that  sufficed  for  reading  every  book  owned  by 
Mr.  Jones,  Abe  acted  as  a  sort  of  clerk  and  salesman  for  him. 
He  kept  no  books  of  account  and  did  not  acquire  the  finer 
mysteries  of  merchandise ;  but  he  could  pack  and  unpack 
goods,  attend  to  customers,  crack  jokes  with  idlers,  keep  the 
place  looking  busy,  and  increase  his  peculiar  knowledge  of  the 
world  he  was  to  live  in.  It  was  every  way  as  valuable  to  him, 
as  a  piece  of  schooling,  as  would  have  been  another  winter 
term  under  Andrew  Crawford. 

During  this  part  of  his  motley  education  Abe  made  himself 
the  star  orator  of  the  Gentryville  "  speaking-matches."  These 
were  carried  on  in  a  rude  kind  of  debating  club,  and  the  range 
of  topics  discussed  was  a  wide  one.  Both  the  consciousness 
and  the  love  of  oratorical  power  began  to  grow  strong  within 
him.  At  the  same  time  he  was  thirsting  for  a  deeper  knowl- 
edge of  law  and  justice  than  could  be  sifted  from  the  Revised 
Statutes  of  Indiana. 

The  county-seat  of  "Warrick  County  was  but  fifteen  miles 
from  Gentryville.  Courts  were  held  there  at  certain  seasons 
of  the  year,  and  judges  sat  to  hear  causes,  and  juries  listened 
to  testimony  and  arguments  and  rendered  verdicts. 

There,  too,  men  were  tried  for  crimes,  and  some  received 
the  penalty  of  their  evil  deeds.  Others,  again,  came  forth  free 
and  in  a  manner  distinguished,  with  the  thrilling  story  of  their 
trial  and  escape  to  tell  ever  afterwards,  as  the  choicest  bit  of 
frontier  history  known  to  them.  It  was  no  small  thing  for 
any  man  that  he  had  been  actually  tried  and  acquitted  of  some- 
thing serious,  and  he  took  a  kind  of  rank  proportioned  to  the 
magnitude  and  peril  of  his  ordeal. 

A  little  walk  of  fifteen  miles  in  the  early  morning,  and  with 
no  more  to  walk  in  returning  after  nightfall,  could  hardly  in- 


BO  Y-  OF-ALL-  WORK.  57 

terfere  with  the  attendance  at  court  of  a  student  combining 
Abe's  length  of  limb  with  his  eagerness  for  law.  He  was  sure 
to  be  among  the  audience  in  the  court-room  whenever  he 
could  escape  from  other  duties.  Not  the  judge  himself,  nor 
any  jury,  attended  more  zealously  the  fortunes  of  every  case 
he  heard. 

One  day  a  man  was  on  trial  for  murder,  and  had  secured 
for  his  defence  a  lawyer  of  more  than  common  ability  named 
John  Breckinridge.  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  exceedingly 
interested  in  the  case  from  the  beginning;  but  when  the 
time  came  for  the  prisoner's  counsel  to  speak  in  his  defence, 
there  was  a  surprise  prepared  for  the  young  Gentryville  de- 
bater. He  had  never,  until  that  day,  listened  to  a  really 
good  argument,  delivered  by  a  man  of  learning  and  eloquence, 
but  he  had  prepared  himself  to  know  and  profit  by  such  an  ex- 
perience when  it  came  to  him.  He  listened  as  if  he  had  him- 
self been  the  prisoner  whose  life  depended  upon  the  success  of 
Mr.  Breckinridge  in  persuading  the  jury  of  his  innocence. 

Other  juries,  long  afterwards,  were  to  learn  how  profound 
and  successful  had  been  the  study  the  rough  backwoods  boy 
was  then  giving  to  the  great  art  of  persuading  the  minds  of 
men.  Millions  of  his  fellow-citizens  were  to  bear  witness  to 
the  capacity  he  was  then  developing  of  so  uttering  a  thought 
that  those  who  heard  or  read  the  utterance  could  never  after- 
wards tear  that  thought  out  of  their  memories. 

Abraham  Lincoln  learned  much  from  the  great  speech ;  but 
he  had  yet  a  deep  and  bitter  lesson  to  receive  that  day.  The 
lines  of  social  caste  were  somewhat  rigidly  drawn  at  that  time. 
A  leading  lawyer  of  good  family  like  Mr.  Breckinridge  was  a 
"  gentleman,"  and  a  species  of  great  man  not  to  be  carelessly 
addressed  by  half-clad  boors  from  the  new  settlements. 

Abe  forgot  all  that ;  perhaps  not  knowing  it  very  well.  He 
could  not  repress  his  enthusiasm  over  that  magnificent  appeal 
to  the  judge  and  jury.  The  last  sentence  of  the  speech  had 
hardly  died  away  before  he  was  pushing  through  the  throng 


58  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

towards  the  gifted  orator.  Mr.  Breckinridge  was  walking 
grandly  out  of  the  court-room,  when  there  stood  in  his  path  a 
gigantic,  solemn-visaged,  beardless  clodhopper,  reaching  out  a 
long  coatless  arm,  with  an  immense  hard  hand  at  the  end  of 
it,  while  an  agitated  voice  expressed  the  heartiest  commenda- 
tion of  the  ability  and  eloquence  of  his  plea  for  his  client. 

Breckinridge  was  a  small-souled  man  in  spite  of  his  mental 
power  and  his  training,  for  he  did  but  glance  in  proud  amaze- 
ment at  the  shabby,  presumptuous  boy,  and  then  pass  stupidly 
on  without  speaking.  He  had  imparted  priceless  instruction 
to  a  fellow  who  had  yet  but  a  faint  perception  of  the  artificial 
barriers  before  him. 

The  two  met  again,  at  the  city  of  Washington,  in  the  year 
1862,  under  other  circumstances,  and  then  the  President  of  the 
United  States  again  complimented  Mr.  Breckinridge  upon  the 
excellence  of  his  speech  in  the  Indiana  murder-case. 

The  precise  information  conveyed  to  Abe,  whether  or  not 
he  mentally  put  it  into  form,  was  that  he  was  a  "poor  white" 
and  of  no  account;  a  species  of  human  trash  to  whom  the 
respect  due  to  all  recognized  manhood  did  not  belong.  He 
forgave  the  man  who  told  him  what  he  was,  but  he  never  ceased 
to  profit  by  the  stinging,  wholesome  information. 

It  was  but  a  little  while  afterwards,  while  he  was  tempora- 
rily employed  by  old  Josiah  Crawford,  and  when  he  had  wor- 
ried good  Mrs.  Crawford  overmuch  by  the  fun  and  uproar  he 
created  in  her  kitchen,  that  she  asked  him, 

"  Now,  Abe,  what  on  earth  do  you  s'pose'll  ever  become  of 
ye  ?  What'll  you  be  good  for  if  you  keep  a-goin'  on  in  this 
way?" 

""Well,"  slowly  responded  Abe,  "I  reckon  I'm  goin'  to  be 
President  of  the  United  States  one  of  these  days." 

He  said  it  soberly  enough.  And  that  was  not  the  only  occasion 
upon  which  there  fell  from  his  lips  some  strange,  extravagant 
expression  of  his  inner  thought  that  there  was  a  great  work 
for  him  to  do  somewhere  in  the  future.  He  could  plow,  chop 


BOY-OF-ALL-WORK  59 

wood,  'tend  store,  do  errands,  make  fun,  now ;  but  he  could  all 
the  while  feel  that  he  was  growing,  growing,  and  that  this 
would  not  last  forever.  He  could  feel  that  the  change  continu- 
ally going  forward  within  him  could  not  be  with  reference  to 
such  a  life  as  he  was  leading,  or  to  such  as  he  saw  led  by  the 
full-grown  and  elderly  men  around  him.  For  him  there  was, 
there  must  be,  something  more  and  higher,  and  he  was  blindly 
reaching  out  after  it,  day  by  day ;  but  all  the  others  deemed 
him  as  one  of  themselves ;  better  than  some,  it  might  be,  but 
very  much  below  any  young  man  whose  father  could  give  him 
a  good  farm  and  some  hogs  and  a  little  ready  money. 


60  ABBAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK  IX. 

THE   FLATBOAT. 

A  Trading  Voyage — Life  in  the  Southern  States — First  View  of  Human 
Slavery— 1828. 

ABE  LINCOLN  had  made  himself  the  best  known  and  most 
popular  young  fellow  in  all  the  region  round  about  Gentryville ; 
but  although  the  whole  country  liked  him,  he  did  not  at  all  like 
the  country.  He  was  now  nineteen  years  of  age,  but  was  still 
subject  to  his  father's  authority,  and  Tom  Lincoln  was  not  the 
man  to  surrender  his  legal  right  to  the  wages  of  his  stalwart 
son.  All  rates  for  farm-labor  were  low,  however,  and  there  was 
none  too  much  of  it  to  be  sold,  at  any  price,  in  a  community 
where  most  men  could  do  all  their  own  work  and  have  ample 
time  left  for  lounging  at  neighboring  cabins  or  around  the 
village  grocery. 

Abe  had  long  since  given  up  the  idea  of  earning  a  living  be- 
hind the  counter  of  Jones's  store,  or  any  other  that  he  knew  of. 
He  was  under  bonds  to  his  father,  but  he  made  an  attempt  to 
obtain  employment  as  a  boat-hand  on  the  river.  His  age  was 
against  him  in  his  first  effort,  but  his  opportunity  was  coming 
to  him.  In  the  month  of  March,  1828,  he  hired  himself  to  Mr. 
Gentry,  the  great  man  of  Gentryville.  His  duties  were  to  be 
mainly  performed  at  Gentry's  Landing,  near  Rockport,  on  the 
Ohio  River.  There  was  a  great  enterprise  on  foot,  or  rather  in 
the  water,  at  Gentry's  Landing,  for  a  natboat  belonging  to  the 
proprietor  was  loading  with  bacon  and  other  produce  for  a 
trading  trip  down  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans.  She  was  to 
be  under  the  command  of  young  Allen  Gentry,  but  would  never 
return  to  the  Ohio,  for  flatboats  are  built  to  go  down  with  the 
stream  and  not  for  pulling  against  it. 


THE  FLATBOAT.  61 

Abe's  hour  for  travel  and  adventure  had  at  last  arrived.  He 
was  given  the  position  of  "  bow-hand,"  at  eight  dollars  a  month 
and  rations,  with  a  paid  return-passage  home  on  a  steamboat. 
It  was  a  golden  vision  indeed,  yet  not  so  much  for  the  money 
as  for  the  grand  trip  itself. 

There  was  society  at  the  "  Landing ;"  and  while  the  boat  was 
taking  on  her  cargo,  her  tall  bow-hand  improved  his  oppor- 
tunities. 

Miss  Roby,  whom  he  had  known  at  Crawford's  school,  and 
through  whom  he  had  saved  the  spelling-class  from  disaster, 
was  deeply  interested  in  the  success  of  that  flatboat.  Not  a 
great  while  after  the  completion  of  its  one  voyage  she  became 
Mrs.  Allen  Gentry,  and  even  now  she  found  excuses  and  occa- 
sions for  coming  on  board  to  chat  with  the  captain  and  with 
his  queer,  fun-loving  "  crew." 

"Abe,"  she  said,  late  one  afternoon,  "the  sun's  going  down." 

"Reckon  not,"  said  Abe.     ""We're  coming  up,  that's  all." 

"Don't  you  s'pose  I've  got  eyes?" 

"  Reckon  so ;  but  it's  the  earth  that  goes  round.  The  sun 
keeps  as  still  as  a  tree.  "When  we're  swung  around  so  we  can't 
see  him  any  more,  all  the  shine's  cut  off  and  we  call  it  night." 

"  Abe,  what  a  fool  you  are !" 

It  was  all  in  vain  to  explain  the  matter  any  further.  The 
science  of  astronomy  had  not  been  taught  at  Crawford's,  and 
was  not  at  all  popular  in  Indiana.  "Whatever  sprinkling  of  it 
Abe  had  found  among  his  books,  there  was  no  use  in  trying 
to  spread  its  wild  vagaries  along  the  banks  of  the  Ohio  River. 
He  knew  altogether  too  much  for  his  time,  and  a  mere  flat- 
boatman  had  no  business  to  dispute  the  visible  truth  concern- 
ing the  daily  habits  of  a  contrivance  so  well  known  as  the  sun. 

The  flatboat  was  cast  loose  from  her  moorings  in  April,  and 
swept  away  down  the  river,  with  Abraham  Lincoln  as  manager 
of  the  forward  oars.  No  such  craft  ever  had  a  longer  or 
stronger  pair  of  arms  pledged  to  keep  her  blunt  nose  well  di- 
rected. 


62  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

They  drifted  down  the  Ohio  into  the  Mississippi,  and  on 
down  for  hundreds  of  crooked  miles,  borne  swiftly  by  the 
muddy,  irresistible  current.  It  was  a  matter  both  of  skill  and 
toil  to  effect  a  stoppage  at  a  landing  for  trading  purposes ;  but 
the  required  visits  were  made  from  place  to  place,  and  the 
young  merchants  met  with  very  encouraging  success.  The 
worst  enemy  they  had  to  contend  with  was  counterfeit  money, 
for  they  were  no  experts  in  detecting  the  quality  of  either  coin 
or  paper.  In  fact,  there  was  so  much  more  bad  money  than 
good  in  circulation  up  and  down  the  Mississippi  that  a  with- 
drawal of  all  the  spurious  stuff  at  any  one  time  would  have 
caused  a  disastrous  contraction  of  the  currency.  The  all  but 
universal  custom  was  to  take  what  came  and  to  pass  it  again 
without  inquiry,  unless  it  were  too  hopelessly  defective  in  its 
external  appearance. 

It  was  a  trip  full  of  life-long  consequences  to  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. Now  again,  for  the  first  time  since,  a  mere  child,  he 
had  emigrated  from  Kentucky,  the  budding  statesman  came 
in  contact  with  human  slavery.  He  had  seen  much  of  what 
could  be  done  with  white  men  in  their  degradation  by  poverty, 
ignorance,  and  intemperance.  He  was  now  to  observe  the  ef- 
fect of  all  these  upon  black  human 'beings  held  as  property 
and  not  regarded  as  men  and  women.  He  was  in  a  fair  state 
of  preparation  for  such  a  study.  Already,  with  patient  care, 
he  had  written  an  essay  on  Temperance,  the  publication  of 
which  in  a  country  newspaper  at  a  distance  had  stirred  his 
young  ambition  to  fever  heat.  He  had  followed  that  with  an- 
other, the  leading  idea  of  which  was  the  necessity  of  general 
popular  education ;  and  this  too  had  been  printed.  In  these  he 
had  worked  out  and  presented  the  results  of  his  studies  of  hu- 
man life  among  his  neighbors.  He  was  now  to  begin  his 
training  and  preparation  for  yet  other  essays  which  he  was  to 
print,  and  for  speeches  which  he  was  to  deliver,  in  the  great 
and  terrible  years  that  were  to  come. 

He  was  not  to  see  the  sunny  side  of  plantation-life,  such  as 


TEE  FLATBOAT.  63 

it  was.  Slavery  came  before  him  in  the  shape  of  negroes  under 
the  whip,  engaged  in  loading  and  unloading  river  craft,  or  toil- 
ing in  unpaid  drudgery  among  the  hot  fields  along  the  banks. 
He  saw  negroes  chained  in  coffles,  on  their  way  to  and  from 
the  market,  and  he  saw  them  bought  and  sold  like  cattle  in  the 
slave-mart  at  'New  Orleans.  Only  the  unpleasant,  the  brutally 
offensive  features  of  the  black  curse  were  permitted  to  make 
their  impression  upon  him,  and  the  brand  they  left  was  an  in- 
effaceable scar. 

All  that  was  upon  his  inner  boy,  indeed,  but  it  was  to  be  in 
a  manner  supplemented  and  represented  by  a  mark  in  the  body 
he  occupied.  At  the  plantation  of  Madame  Bushane,  six  miles 
below  Baton  Rouge,  the  flatboat  was  moored  for  the  night 
against  the  landing,  and  the  keepers  were  sound  asleep  in  their 
little  kennel  of  a  cabin.  They  slept  until  the  sound  of  stealthy 
footsteps  on  the  deck  aroused  Allen  Gentry,  and  he  sprang  to 
his  feet.  There  could  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  cause  of  the  dis- 
turbance. A  gang  of  negroes  had  boarded  the  boat  for 
plunder,  and  they  would  think  lightly  enough,  now  they  were 
discovered,  of  knocking  the  two  traders  on  the  head  and  throw- 
ing them  into  the  river. 

"  Bring  the  guns,  Abe !"  shouted  Allen.     "  Shoot  them  1" 

The  intruders  were  not  to  be  scared  away  by  even  so  alarm- 
ing an  outcry ;  and  in  an  instant  more  Abe  Lincoln  was  among 
them,  not  with  a  gun  but  with  a  serviceable  club.  They 
fought  well,  and  one  of  them  gave  their  tall  enemy  a  wound, 
the  scar  of  which  he  carried  with  him  to  his  grave ;  but  his 
strength  and  agility  were  too  much  for  them.  He  beat  them 
all  off  the  boat,  not  killing  any  one  man,  but  convincing  the 
entire  party  that  they  had  boarded  the  wrong  "  broad-horn." 

The  trip  lasted  about  three  months,  going  and  coming,  and 
in  June  the  two  adventurers  were  at  home  again,  well  satisfied 
with  their  success.  Allen  Gentry  had  profited  the  more 
largely  in  the  mere  matter  of  money,  but  his  bow-hand  had 
brought  back  with  him  treasures  of  information ;  of  experience 


64  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  education,  gathered  all  the  way  from  the  month  of  Ander- 
son's Creek,  on  the  Ohio,  to  the  very  borders  of  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  The  whole  country  and  the  world  itself  was  yet  to 
be  the  better  and  the  wiser  for  Abraham  Lincoln's  schooling 
in  his  slow  summer  voyage  down  the  Mississippi  and  up  again. 
Little  he  then  dreamed  that  he  was  yet  to  direct  the  course  of 
fleets  on  that  same  water,  of  armies  along  the  winding  shores, 
and  the  sieges  of  strong  forts  upon  the  bluffs  and  headlands. 

His  lessons  were  not  all  dark  ones,  doubtless,  but  the  shad- 
ows upon  his  face  were  deepening  with  so  much  to  think  of, 
and  there  was  small  probability  that  he  would  again  settle 
cheerfully  down  to  the  dufl  and  empty  life  of  the  Little  Pigeon 
Creek  neighborhood. 


"OF  ILLINOIS: 


CHAPTEE  X. 

"OF  ILLINOIS." 

Another  Migration — Of  full  Age  and  Free — Farmhand  and  Flatboatman — 
More  Southern  Studies — 1830. 

RAPIDLY  as  the  young  State  of  Indiana  was  filling  up  with 
sturdy  farmers  from  the  older  settlements,  it  was  still  a  very 
new  country:  And  yet  there  was  a  newer  and  a  more  wonder- 
ful region  spread  out  beyond  it.  The  vast  expanse  of  prairie- 
and  forest  between  the  Indiana  line  and  the  Mississippi  River 
had  been  formed  into  the  State  of  Illinois.  Men  told  marvel- 
ous tales  of  its  fertility,  and  of  the  ease  with  which  farms, 
could  be  opened  on  land  where  so  much  and  so  perfect  a 
clearing  had  been  made  by  the  hand  of  Nature. 

John  Hanks,  a  cousin  of  the  Lincolns,  had  settled  near  Deca- 
tur,  in  central  Illinois,  in  1828,  and  his  letters  fired  the  ima- 
gination of  Dennis  Hanks  to  such  a  degree  that  he  talked  of 
little  else  than  prairie-farming.  He  even  made  a  visit  to 
Illinois,  and  after  his  return  the  question  of  emigrating  or  not 
was  as  good  as  settled  for  the  whole  family.  Dennis  had  now 
married  the  oldest  daughter  of  Abe's  good  stepmother,  and 
had  made  a  sort  of  start  in  lif e  for  himself,  so  that  he  was  in 
some  degree  an  independent  person ;  but  Abe  had  yet  a  few 
short  months  to  wait  for  manhood  and  freedom. 

There  were  agencies  at  work  to  drive  as  well  as  to  attract, 
for  the  "  milk-sick"  had  appeared  again,  and  was  at  work  with 
terrible  energy  upon  both  beasts  and  human  beings.  In  spite 
of  that,  however,  a  whole  year  was  consumed  in  the  process  of 
getting  away  from  the  old  place. 

Another  daughter  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  married  Levi  Hall, 


66  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  the  young  couple  joined  the  westward  movement.  Yet, 
when  land  and  corn  and  stock  had  been  sold,  one  large  wagon 
held  all  the  household  stuff  of  the  three  families  of  Hanks, 
Hall,  and  Lincoln.  They  waited  until  the  latter  part  of  the 
winter  of  1830,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  became  of  age  but  a 
few  days  before  they  set  out  for  Illinois. 

A  worse  time  of  the  year  could  hardly  have  been  selected  for 
wagoning  over  western  roads,  but  the  choice  of  it  was  charac- 
teristic of  Tom  Lincoln.  The  four  yoke  of  oxen  over  which 
Abe  held  the  "  gad "  were  barely  sufficient  to  overcome  the 
unending  succession  of  mudholes,  sloughs,  and  rivers  through 
which  the  clumsy  vehicle  had  to  be  hauled.  It  was  an  un- 
usually good  wagon  for  those  days,  although  it  was  the  very 
first  Tom  Lincoln  ever  owned,  and  it  held  together  well. 

On  the  first  day  of  March,  1830,  after  two  weeks  of  slow 
and  laborious  travel,  the  journey  ended  at  the  house  of  John 
.Hanks  near  Decatur. 

Abraham  Lincoln  had  reached  the  scenes  of  his  further  edu- 
•cation,  his  trials  and  his  triumphs  for  the  thirty  years  which 
then  lay  between  him  and  his  highest  uses.  He  would  need 
all  the  time,  and  a  good  use  of  all  his  opportunities :  and  these 
could  hardly  be  fewer  or  poorer,  nor  could  the  obstacles  to  be 
overcome  confront  him  with  more  insurmountable  stubborn- 
ness, than  those  he  had  left  behind  him  in  the  fever-haunted 
woods  of  Indiana. 

Some  oppressions,  indeed,  were  now  removed.  He  was 
twenty-one,  and  was  a  free  man  and  a  voter.  He  could  come 
and  go  as  he  pleased,  and  such  wages  as  he  might  earn  would 
be  all  his  own.  Beyond  that,  however,  there  was  little  to  be 
said  for  him.  Trade,  profession,  manual  skill  of  any  special 
kind,  he  had  none  except  the  coarse  arts  of  the  wood-chopper, 
the  boatman,  and  rough  farmer. 

He  was  free,  but  his  first  work  in  Illinois  was  given  to  his 
father,  or  rather  to  his  well-beloved  stepmother ;  for  he  joined 
the  other  males  of  the  family  in  building  a  house  on  a  high 


"  OF  ILLINOIS."  67 

bank  of  the  north  fork  of  the  Sangamon  River,  out  of  some 
logs  already  cut  there,  and  given  them  for  the  purpose  by 
John  Hanks. 

After  the  new  homestead  was  completed  and  the  family  had 
moved  into  it,  Abe  and  Dennis  plowed  up  fifteen  acres  of 
prairie-land  for  corn,  and  split  rails  enough  to  fence  it  in.  He 
had  done  what  he  could  to  leave  matters  in  good  shape  behind 
him  as  he  went  out  to  toil  for  himself.  But  he  severed  no  tie 
of  affection  in  his  going.  To  his  dying  day  he  never  ceased 
to  care  for  his  "  mother"  and  her  comfort,  and  there  was  no 
interruption  of  the  full  current  of  her  love  for  him. 

It  was  a  great  day  for  Abraham  Lincoln  when,  all  present 
filial  duty  well  performed,  he  once  for  all  cut  himself  loose 
from  the  heaviest  part  of  the  load  he  had  carried  for  twenty- 
one  long  years.  The  crushing  weight  of  that  oppression  no 
man  can  estimate.  Not  even  if  he  has  studied  never  so  care- 
fully what  it  is,  and  then  was,  to  be  a  "  poor  white"  in  a  new 
settlement ;  for  different  men  take  up  different  weights  in  the 
same  pack.  Young  Lincoln  himself  had  but  dim  and  formless 
perceptions  of  the  truth.  Neither  he  nor  any  one  else  could 
know  or  comprehend,  moreover,  the  wonderful  manner  and 
degree  of  the  gain  he  had  won  from  his  very  disadvantages. 
No  one  could  discern  or  measure  the  internal  growth,  as  all 
could  the  physical  and  external ;  but  a  giant  had  been  trained 
and  was  still  in  training  for  a  life-long  wrestle  with  opposing 
forces  of  every  name  and  nature. 

It  was  about  the  middle  of  spring  before  a  beginning  could 
be  made  in  the  new  career,  but  from  that  time  forward  Abe 
ceased  to  make  his  father's  house  his  home.  Except  that  it 
contained  his  mother,  it  could  not  be  a  home  for  him  in  any 
true  sense.  He  never  had  had  one :  only  a  log-shelter  to  eat 
and  sleep  in ;  while  the  cattle  he  drove  were  better  provided 
for,  considering  their  natures  and  requirements.  The  life  he 
had  led  had  shown  him  the  insides  of  many  homes,  and  the 
life  before  him  was  to  do  the  same :  but  none  of  these  had  been, 


68  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  none  was  to  be,  his  own.  There  was  that  in  his  organism, 
both  as  to  its  plan  and  size,  which  almost  forbade  the  idea  of 
his  fitting  perfectly  into  any  one  house  or  family  circle,  so  that 
it  should  be  to  him  much  more  than  a  sort  of  "boarding- 
house." 

He  was  now  not  only  homeless  but  penniless,  and  it  was 
needful  that  he  should  make  a  start  somewhere ;  also  that  he 
should  begin  in  the  line  to  which  his  previous  life  had  accus- 
tomed him.  His  capacity  and  willingness  for  hard  work  at 
once  secured  him  pretty  steady  employment.  He  did  not  love 
such  drudgery,  but  he  did  it  faithfully,  earning  his  daily  bread 
under  a  sort  of  perpetual  protest,  and  all  the  while  he  was  win- 
ning for  himself  a  local  popularity  similar  to  that  which  he  had 
enjoyed  in  Indiana.  His  friends,  and  even  some  of  his  rela- 
tives, had  a  certain  amount  of  faith  in  him,  and  were  disposed 
to  force  him  into  activity  when  an  occasion  offered. 

There  was  a  little  political  excitement  in  the  fall  of  that 
year,  and  the  question  of  the  improvement  of  the  Sangamon 
River  for  purposes  of  navigation  was  a  leading  topic  of  debate. 
There  was  the  usual  stump-speaking,  of  course,  and  among  the 
orators  who  traveled  through  the  prairie  country  on  that 
errand  was  a  man  named  Posey.  He  came  to  Decatur,  and  he 
made  a  speech  which  so  much  disgusted  John  Hanks  as  to 
bring  from  him  the  remark, 

"  Mister,  I  tell  ye  what :  Abe  Lincoln  can  beat  that  all  hol- 
low. Abe,  try  him  on." 

A  box  was  turned  over  for  Abe  to  stand  upon,  and  his  career 
as  an  Illinois  political  stump-speaker  fairly  began.  Not  only 
did  he  beat  the  speech  of  Mr.  Posey,  but  he  so  completely  con- 
quered that  gentleman  that,  after  the  debate  was  over  and 
when  the  opponents  came  together,  the  vanquished  campaigner 
frankly  asked  his  rough  antagonist  "  where  he  learned  to  do 
it." 

Abe  replied  freely,  and  even  told  the  nature  and  extent  of 
his  reading,  as  if  he  owed  his  power  as  an  orator  in  great 


"  OF  ILLINOIS."  69 

measure  to  his  books.  A  host  of  mere  bookworms  could  have 
undeceived  him  on  that  point  if  he  could  have  tested  them  in 
attempts  to  address  crowds  of  miscellaneous  hearers.  Mr. 
Posey  honestly  and  earnestly  encouraged  his  queer  acquaint- 
ance to  persevere ;  but  he  was  quite  likely  to  do  that. 

The  year  went  by  and  Abraham  Lincoln  was  still  a  mere 
farm-hand,  jobbing  his  strong  body  to  one  employer  after 
another.  It  did  not  seem  that  he  had  climbed  a  single  round 
of  the  long  ladder  of  worldly  success.  But  the  return  of  his 
birthday  brought  him  something  new.  A  man  named  Denton 
Offutt  hired  John  Hanks  and  John  Johnston  and  Abe  Lincoln 
to  take  a  flatboat  for  him  down  the  Sangamon  Eiver  all  the  way 
from  Springfield  to  New  Orleans.  He  promised  them  fifty 
cents  a  day  for  the  entire  trip,  with  an  additional  sixty  dollars 
to  be  divided  among  them  at  the  end  of  it.  For  those  times 
such  wages  were  extraordinary. 

The  bargain  was  made  in  February,  and  in  March  the  three 
friends  went  down  the  Sangamon  from  Decatur  in  a  canoe. 
For  some  reason  they  left  their  boat  five  miles  above  the  town 
and  walked  the  rest  of  the  way.  They  found  their  employer 
easily  enough,  but  they  also  found  that  he  had  failed  to  procure 
for  himself  a  flatboat  for  the  proposed  voyage.  If,  therefore, 
they  were  to  go  down  the  river  that  season  they  must  provide 
their  own  shipping.  The  construction  of  a  flatboat  was  no 
formidable  affair  to  men  who  had  been  brought  up  as  they 
had. 

They  went  to  the  mouth  of  Spring  Creek,  five  miles  north 
of  Springfield,  and  set  to  work. 

The  land  they  were  on  and  the  trees  they  cut  down  were 
still  the  property  of  the  United  States  Government,  although  so 
near  the  future  capital  of  the  State  of  Illinois.  The  logs  when 
cut  were  rafted  down  the  river,  to  be  sawed  into  planks  at  the 
Sangamontown  saw-mill.  That  work  was  done  in  a  fortnight, 
and  in  two  weeks  more  the  industrious  trio  had  their  flatboat 
in  the  water.  All  the  while  they  lived  in  a  shanty  of  their 


70  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

own  making  and  "boarded  themselves."  There  had  been 
fun  along  with  the  hard  work,  for  Abe  was  the  life  of  the 
shanty. 

There  had  also  been  evening  strolls  into  all  there  was  of 
Sangamontown,  and  talks,  and  yarn-spinning,  and  cracking  of 
jokes  with  the  inhabitants. 

Mr.  Offutt  joined  them  now,  and  his  cargo  was  ready  for 
shipment  when  the  flatboat  was  launched.  The  State  of 
Illinois  at  that  time  raised  but  little  of  any  other  crop  than 
Indian  corn,  and  sent  this  to  market  mainly  in  the  shape  of 
pork.  The  cargo  therefore  consisted  of  the  favorite  grain  in 
both  its  customary  forms,  and  Mr.  Offutt  took  charge  of  its 
management  and  sale.  Yery  little  of  it  would  have  reached  a 
southern  market,  however,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  curious 
ingenuity  of  the  tallest  of  his  three  boatmen. 

On  the  19th  of  April  the  boat  arrived  at  New  Salem,  and  at 
that  point  there  was  a  mill-dam  upon  the  ridge  of  which  the 
rude  craft  floated  and  stuck  fast.  Her  destruction  seemed  in- 
evitable, for  her  stern  was  sinking,  the  water  was  pouring  in, 
and  her  loose  lading  was  sliding  back  as  the  slope  of  her  awk- 
ward position  increased. 

Abe  Lincoln  at  once  took  command,  as  if  in  any  time  of 
special  trouble  the  leadership  belonged  to  him.  An  empty 
boat  was  floated  alongside,  and  the  cargo  was  hoisted  into  it 
by  main  strength,  until  the  grounded  craft  was  sufficiently 
lightened  to  be  set  afloat  again.  Just  how  he  managed  to  keep 
her  from  sinking  during  that  brief  period  of  desperate  exer- 
tion does  not  clearly  appear. 

Before  he  pulled  her  off  from  the  dam  he  rigged  some  gear- 
ing under  her  stern  by  means  of  which  she  was  steadily  raised, 
while  the  water  ran  out  of  her  through  auger-holes  bored  in 
the  bottom  of  the  part  which  hung  over  the  dam.  It  was 
Abe's  first  effort  as  an  inventor,  but  it  set  his  mind  at  work  in 
a  new  direction.  Just  eight  years  afterward  he  sent  to  the 
Patent  Office  at  Washington  a  wooden  model,  made  by  him- 


"  OF  ILLINOIS."  71 

self,  of  a  contrivance  for  floating  steamers  over  bars  and  other 
obstructions  in  the  western  rivers. 

New  Salem  was  a  small  place  on  a  low  bluff,  and  all  its  in- 
habitants came  out  to  watch  the  fate  of  the  stuck  flatboat. 
Great  was  the  admiration  expressed  for  the  skill  and  energy  of 
the  man  who  saved  it.  Neither  he  nor  they,  however,  had  any 
idea  that  for  seven  long  years  that  very  man  would  himself 
be  "  stuck"  and  stranded  in  the  odd,  grotesque,  chance-medley 
existence  of  New  Salem. 

Mr.  Offutt's  gratitude  made  him  enthusiastic ;  for  he  vowed 
that  on  his  return  he  would  build  a  steamboat  to  run  on  the 
Sangamon.  He  would  provide  her  with  runners  for  ice  and 
rollers  for  shoals  and  dams ;  and  then,  "  with  Abe  Lincoln  in 
command  of  her,  by  thunder,  she  would  have  to  go !" 

The  remainder  of  the  trip  was  much  like  any  other  flatboat 
voyage  down  the  Mississippi ;  but  at  New  Orleans  and  else- 
ivhere  Abe  received  a  repetition  of  his  first  lessons  on  slavery. 
He  again  saw  negroes  manacled  for  sale,  maltreated,  beaten, 
and  felt  that  it  was  neither  safe  nor  useful  to  enter  any  pro- 
test. No  word  could  be  spoken  against  an  iniquity  which  all 
men  declared  to  be  a  great  good,  and  a  necessity  of  Southern 
life ;  but  a  memory  could  be  recorded  and  put  away  in  the 
secret  treasure-house  of  the  young  flatboatman's  heart.  The 
day  was  to  come  when  he  should  take  it  out  and  put  it  into 
words  so  plain,  so  clear,  so  strong,  that  the  minds  of  a  minion 
and  a  half  of  voters  should  receive  them  as  a  sort  of  Gospel. 

After  that  was  to  come  yet  another  day,  when  his  own  hands 
should  be  laid  upon  the  manacles,  in  power,  and  should  shatter 
them,  putting  an  end  forever  to  the  buying  and  selling  of  men 
and  women  in  the  United  States. 

The  steamboat  passage  homewards  terminated  at  St.  Louis. 
From  that  point,  all  the  way  up  and  across  the  great  State  of 
Illinois,  to  Coles  County,  Abe  Lincoln  and  John  Johnston 
traveled  on  foot,  leaving  Hanks  on  the  road  to  make  his  way 
to  Springfield. 


72  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  Lincoln  family  Lad  moved  again  during  Abe's  brief  ab- 
sence, but  their  Coles  County  settlement  proved  a  permanent 
one. 

This  second  experience  of  river  life  in  the  South  left  the 
young  giant  little  better  off  than  before  in  worldly  goods, 
whatever  else  he  may  have  gained  by  it.  But  while  he  was 
away  his  talkative  friends  had  taken  good  care  of  his  reputa- 
tion as  a  man  of  muscle.  They  had  said  so  much,  indeed,  that 
the  champion  wrestler  of  that  region,  one  Daniel  JSTeedham, 
sent  him  a  challenge  to  a  public  trial  of  strength  and  skill.  It 
was  accepted,  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  the  meeting  took  place 
with  all  the  customary  prairie  formalities ;  but  rarely  has  a 
"  champion"  been  more  astonished  than  was  Daniel  Needham. 
It  was  not  so  much  that  he  was  thrown  twice  in  quick  succes- 
sion, but  that  the  thing  was  done  for  him  with  so  much  appar- 
ent ease ;  and  his  wrath  rose  hotly  to  the  fighting  point. 

"  Lincoln,"  he  shouted,  "  you've  thrown  me  twice,  but  you 
can't  whip  me." 

"  !Needham,"  said  Abe,  "  are  you  satisfied  I  can  throw  you  ? 
Well,  if  you  ain't,  and  I've  got  to  satisfy  you  by  thrashing 
you,  I'll  do  that  too,  for  your  own  good." 

The  crowd  laughed ;  but  the  champion  gave  the  matter  a 
sober  second  thought,  and  concluded  that  his  own  good  did 
not  require  a  mauling  from  that  man.  He  was  entirely  satis- 
fied already. 


A.  STEP  UPWARD.  73 


CHAPTER  XL 

A  STEP  TJPWABD. 

Stranded  in  New  Salem — First  Public  Employment — Miller,  Clerk,  and 
Peace-keeper — A  Wrestling  Match — 1831. 

THE  mill-dam  across  the  Sangamon  River,  upon  the  perilous 
edge  of  which  Mr.  Offutt's  flatboat  stuck,  to  be  rescued  by 
Abraham  Lincoln,  is  still  in  existence ;  but  the  little  hamlet  of 
New  Salem  has  long  since  disappeared.  The  hand  of  time  re- 
quires but  little  human  aid  in  the  destruction  of  a  score  or  two 
of  houses  built  of  logs  or  of  pine  boards,  the  best  of  them  at 
a  cost  of  less  than  a  hundred  dollars. 

New  Salem,  however,  was  something  of  a  business  place  in 
the  summer  of  the  year  1831.  The  mill  was  a  great  help  to 
it,  and  it  was  separated  by  twenty  miles  of  prairie  road  from 
the  crushing  rivalry  of  Springfield.  That  city  already  con- 
tained at  least  a  thousand  inhabitants,  and  no  neighboring  set- 
tlement could  hope  to  compete  with  it  successfully. 

The  whole  population  of  the  prairie  country  was  in  a  condi- 
tion of  continual  drift  and  change,  yet  hardly  any  man  could 
offer  a  good  reason  for  his  restlessness.  Whole  families  floated 
hither  and  thither,  they  knew  not  why  and  scarcely  how, 
drawing  friends  and  connections  after  them. 

A  solitary,  loose-footed  laborer,  without  an  ounce  of  prop- 
erty beyond  the  shabby  clothes  he  stood  in,  was  a  fragment  of 
human  driftwood  which  might  be  cast  ashore  almost  any- 
where by  the  aimless  eddies  of  such  a  social  state. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  hiring  from  job  to  job  of  uncertain  work, 
was  stranded  at  New  Salem  about  midsummer  of  the  year  1831. 
He  had  no  definite  business  there,  no  settled  occupation,  no 


74  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

home,  no  special  friends,  although  there  were  some  who  knew 
him  by  name.  His  first  employment  grew  out  of  the  fact 
that  he  could  write ;  for  that  accomplishment  was  by  no  means 
general  in  New  Salem.  The  "election"  was  held  in  August ; 
but  when  the  polls  were  opened  the  reception  of  votes  was 
checked  by  the  sad  fact  that  but  one  "  clerk"  was  present  to 
record  them,  while  the  inexorable  law  demanded  two.  Worse 
than  that,  a  search  of  the  known  residents  of  New  Salem  failed 
to  discover  a  second  candidate  duly  educated  for  the  perform- 
ance of  his  duties.  There  was  the  very  tall  stranger  loitering 
around.  It  was  not  likely  that  he  could  use  a  pen,  but  they 
could  ask  him ;  and  one  of  the  "  judges  of  election"  approached 
him  with, 

"  Mister,  kin  you  write  ?" 
"  Well,  yes,  I  reckon  I  can,  a  little." 
"  Will  you  take  a  hand  as  clerk  of  'lection  to-day  P 
"  Well,  yes,  if  you  want  me.     I'll  try  it  on.    Do  the  best  I 
can." 

It  was  a  curious  experience  for  the  stranded  stranger.  He 
was  performing  the  first  act  of  his  life  as  a  public  functionary, 
and  the  power  and  office  came  to  him  because  he  was  the  one 
and  only  man  who  had  the  necessary  education. 

Mr.  Denton  Offutt  had  it  in  his  mind  to  start  a  country  store 
at  New  Salem,  and  Abe  was  in  some  hope  of  employment 
from  him  if  the  intention  should  be  fulfilled :  but  it  was  not. 
Mr.  Offutt's  plans,  like  his  flatboat  enterprise,  were  a  little  un- 
certain in  their  beginnings.  Meantime,  however,  a  job  turned 
up  in  the  piloting  of  a  flatboat  down  the  Sangamon  River  in  a 
flood.  It  was  a  task  which  called  for  nerve  and  skill  as  well  as 
strength,  for  there  were  places  where  the  swollen  current  car- 
ried the  boat  across  prairie,  two  or  three  miles  away  from 
the  regular  channel,  and  all  knowledge  of  the  latter  was  of  no 
account.  There  was  a  whole  family  on  board  with  their 
household  goods,  bound  for  Texas,  and  their  tall  pilot  steered 
them  safely  down  the  freshet,  as  far  as  his  contract  called  for. 


A  STEP   UPWARD.  75 

Then  he  left  them  in  other  hands  and  walked  back  to  New 
Salem. 

More  loitering  and  waiting  followed,  with  a  process  of  get- 
ting acquainted  with  everybody,  and  at  last  Mr.  Offutt's  goods 
arrived.  He  added  to  them  by  purchasing  the  stock  on  hand 
of  what  would  otherwise  have  been  the  rival  establishment. 
He  had  kept  his  liking  for  his  flatboat  hero,  and  Abe  was  en- 
gaged as  clerk  and  salesman  of  the  new  concern.  It  was  a  rise 
in  life  for  him ;  one  more  round  of  the  ladder  he  was  climbing 
out  of  the  miry  bog  in  which  he  had  been  born. 

Mr.  Offutt  was  an  enterprising  man,  and  he  now  rented  the 
mill  itself  from  its  owners,  and  put  it  under  the  especial 
charge  of  Abe,  while  a  clerk  named  Green  was  assigned  to 
duty  at  the  store.  Lincoln  had  tried  his  hand  at  many  things, 
and  now  he  was  a  miller,  as  if  no  point  of  life  should  be  found 
at  which  he  had  not  come  into  contact  with  the  people  he  lived 
among.  He  mingled  with  them  everywhere,  being  thoroughly 
one  of  them.  He  soon  discovered  that  not  even  the  woods  of 
Indiana  had  developed  a  rougher,  coarser,  and  in  some  respects 
a  more  vicious  and  degraded  community.  Fighting,  drinking, 
gambling,  riotous  dissipation  of  all  the  ruder  varieties,  were 
the  order  of  the  day,  and  of  almost  every  day.  Abe's  physical 
prowess  once  more  stood  him  in  good  stead.  It  enabled  him 
in'  time  to  set  up  as  a  sort  of  heavy-handed  keeper  of  the 
peace :  but  this  could  not  be,  of  course,  until  he  had  been  tested 
against  the  local  bully. 

The  boasts  of  his  friends,  headed  by  Mr.  Offutt,  shortly 
brought  that  matter  about.  The  latter  freely  declared  that 
Abe  could  outrun,  throw,  or  whip  any  man  in  Sangamon 
County,  and  that  he  knew  more  than  any  other  man  alive,  and 
would  be  President  of  the  United  States  some  day.  He  had 
reasons  of  his  own  for  the  faith  that  was  in  him ;  but  over  at 
Clary's  Grove  there  was  another  man  who  imagined  a  large 
share  at  least  of  all  that  praise  his  own  peculiar  due.  He  too 
had  enthusiastic  admirers  ready  to  do  his  boasting  for  him. 


76  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  "  Clary's  Grove  Boys"  were  a  set  of  unmitigated  ruffians, 
and  Jack  Armstrong  was  their  best  man.  From  all  accounts 
it  is  hard  to  guess  who  or  what  could  have  been  their  worst, 
and  all  peaceable  people  stood  in  dread  of  them. 

There  came  one  day  a  kind  of  boasting  match  between 
Offutt  and  Bill  Clary,  of  Clary's  Grove,  and  it  could  have  but 
one  result.  Abe  Lincoln  and  Jack  Armstrong  were  pitted 
against  each  other  for  a  wrestle,  in  spite  of  all  the  strong  ob- 
jections made  by  the  former.  That  was  not  the  sort  of  com- 
petition or  success  that  Mr.  OfFutt's  foreman  was  studying  for, 
and  he  did  his  best  to  avoid  it ;  but  it  was  too  late  to  escape, 
for  the  match  had  been  definitely  made. 

The  confidence  of  the  Clary's  Grove  Boys  in  their  cham- 
pion was  unbounded,  and  so  was  that  of  the  public  generally, 
so  that  the  tide  of  betting  and  talk  ran  all  in  favor  of  Jack  Arm- 
strong, until  the  two  antagonists  were  fairly  clinched  in  the 
ring. 

The  struggle  which  followed  was  no  common  one,  for  the 
men  were  well  matched,  and,  so  long  as  the  rules  of  fair 
wrestling  were  observed,  neither  succeeded  in  gaining  any  ad- 
vantage. At  last,  both  out  of  breath,  they  separated  and  stood 
looking  at  each  other. 

"  Jack,"  said  Lincoln,  "  let's  quit.  You  can't  throw  me  and 
I  can't  throw  you." 

The  champion  had  been  deeply  stung  by  his  unexpected 
failure,  and  now  a  chorus  of  biting  remarks  arose  among  his 
own  friends  and  followers.  He  made  no  verbal  reply,  but 
rushed  right  in  again  in  the  hope  of  suddenly  securing  a 
"  foul  hold "  and  an  unfair  advantage.  But  he  had  already 
tried  too  far  even  the  steady  temper  of  his  antagonist :  in  an- 
other instant,  caught  by  the  throat  in  a  pair  of  iron  hands,  he 
was  held  out  at  arm's  length,  and  shaken  as  if  he  had  been  a 
child. 

Then  the  cry  was,  "  A  fight !  A  fight !"  and  the  supporters  of 
Mr.  Offutt  were  by  no  means  equal,  in  either  numbers  or  bru- 


A  STEP  UPWARD.  77 

talit y,  to  those  of  Bill  Clary.  The  latter  claimed  the  stakes,  and 
they  would  perhaps  have  been  surrendered  to  him  but  for 
the  aroused  condition  of  Abe  Lincoln's  temper.  He  had  an 
abundance  of  it  if  any  one  would  take  the  trouble  to  stir  it 
up,  and  it  refused  always  to  go  down  rapidly.  He  now  de- 
clared himself  ready  and  willing  to  fight  Armstrong  or  any -of 
his  fellows.  The  consequences  might  have  been  serious  but 
for  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Rutledge,  the  owner  of  the  mill  and  the 
great  man  of  New  Salem.  The  noisy  mob  had  all  a  mob's 
respect  for  well-clad  wealth.  The  mill-owner  was  able  to 
restore  the  broken  peace,  and  there  was  no  fighting  done. 

The  episode  was  full  of  important  consequences  to  Abraham 
Lincoln.  His  courage  and  prowess  had  been  thoroughly 
tested  and  had  made  a  deep  impression  upon  the  minds  of  his 
rough  neighbors.  He  was  in  no  danger  of  further  challenges 
from  any  of  them,  and  Jack  Armstrong  avowed  himself  the 
fast  friend  of  the  man  who  had  given  him  so  good  a  shaking. 
The  further  results  were  only  a  question  of  time,  for  the  wrest- 
ling match  which  was  not  won  by  either  of  the  contestants 
gained  for  Abe  Lincoln  a  strong  and  devoted,  if  somewhat  tur- 
bulent, constituency.  Every  member  of  the  Clary's  Grove 
gang  had  a  vote,  and  with  it  a  strong  admiration  for  a  man  who 
could  not  only  read  and  write,  but  could  hold  a  bully  at  arm's 
length.  The  story  of  the  "  match"  went  far  and  wide,  and  its 
hero  was  thenceforth  a  man  of  note  and  influence  in  that  com- 
munity. 

Thenceforward,  moreover,  the  immediate  neighborhood  had 
a  recognized  and  respected  peacemaker,  and  became  a  more 
pleasant  place  of  residence  for  men  of  quiet  tastes.  Not  to 
such  a  degree,  however,  that  an  utter  stranger  would  be  wise 
in  loitering  here  and  there  too  much  unless  he  were  prepared 
to  look  out  for  his  personal  safety  somewhat  as  Lincoln  had 
done. 

The  new  foreman  of  Offutt's  mill  found  that  his  duties  left 
him  with  time  on  his  hands,  and  he  did  not  propose  to  waste  it. 


78  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

He  could  already  read  and  write  and  "  cipher."  He  could 
make  speeches.  He  could  even  compose  essays  and  get  them 
printed.  He  knew  that  he  had  a  fair  capacity  for  the  use  of 
words.  But  he  had  latterly  made  an  important  discovery.  It 
was  that  human  language,  his  own  in  particular,  had  its  laws, 
and  these  had  been  ferreted  out  and  formulated  by  men  of 
learning,  and  that  no  man  could  be  called  "  educated "  while 
ignorant  of  them.  He  went  at  once  to  Mr.  Graham,  the  school- 
master of  New  Salem,  and  asked  him  questions  about  grammar. 

"  I  have  a  notion  to  study  it." 

"  If  you  ever  expect  to  go  before  the  public  in  any  capacity, 
I  think  it's  the  best  thing  you  can  do." 

"  If  I  had  a  grammar  I'd  begin  on  it  right  away." 

The  schoolmaster  knew  of  one  that  could  be  had  of  a  man 
named  Yaner,  only  six  miles  away,  and  the  rare  book  was  pur- 
chased and  brought  back  to  town  with  all  the  speed  in  the  long 
limbs  of  its  new  owner.  "Whether  or  not  it  would  better  fit 
him  to  come  before  such  a  public  as  that  of  Clary's  Grove,  or 
even  New  Salem,  Abe  gave  all  his  spare  time  to  the  mastery 
of  it. 

There  were  other  books  now  within  reach,  and  these  also 
were  doggedly  conquered,  one  by  one.  The  dayh'ght  was 
burned  over  them,  while  the  student  lay  at  full  length  on  his 
counter  in  the  store,  waiting  for  customers,  or  stretched  upon 
the  grass  outside  in  dull  seasons,  or  sitting  on  a  sack  of  corn, 
"  between  grists,"  at  the  mill.  When  evening  came,  he  would 
go  over  to  the  cooper-shop  and  read  there,  burning  shaving 
after  shaving,  one  kindled  from  another,  in  place  of  unattain- 
able candles.  These  were  not  only  scarce  but  costly,  and  Abe's 
wages  permitted  him  no  vain  extravagances.  He  was  fighting 
his  upward  way,  inch  by  inch,  with  iron  resolution.  Even  the 
New  Salem  community  could  plainly  discern  how  fast  his 
inner  man  was  growing.  They  were  all  but  proud  of  him, 
and  the  fame,  of  his  knowledge  spread  far  and  wide,  keeping 
even  pace  with  his  reputation  for  story-telling  and  for  shaking 


A  STEP   UPWARD.  79 

Jack  Armstrong.  He  could  not  fail  to  be  popular  among 
those  who  knew  him  well,  and  every  fresh  arrival  from  the 
outside  world  was  sure  to  be  seized  upon  and  made  a  friend  of. 
Yes,  and  then  subjected  to  a  pumping  process,  which  drew 
from  him,  for  Abe's  benefit,  whatever  he  might  know.  There 
is  hardly  a  human  being  from  whom  such  an  inquirer  could 
not  learn  something,  and  the  power  to  so  gather  wisdom  grows 
continually  with  its  use. 

Lincoln's  first  political  speech  in  Illinois  had  dealt  with  the 
problem  of  the  future  navigation  of  the  Sangamon  River,  and 
now,  early  in  the  spring  of  1832,  a  company  of  gentlemen 
went  so  far,  in  attempting  a  practical  solution,  as  to  charter  a 
small  steamboat  named  the  "Talisman,"  and  decide  to  send 
her  up  the  stream  as  high  as  she  could  go.  Quite  a  number  of 
questions  could  be  answered  by  the  results  of  such  an  experi- 
ment :  but  it  was  not  tried  in  flood-time  or  they  might  have 
found  and  reported  much  more  water  in  the  channel.  They 
were  wise  enough  to  secure  Abe  Lincoln's  services  as  pilot, 
"from  Beardstown,  up  and  back."  He  steered  the  boat  in 
safety  around  the  many  crooks  and  windings,  avoiding  all  snags 
and  bars  and  similar  perils,  until  she  found  her  further  progress 
barred  by  the  New  Salem  mill-dam.  If  she  could  not  pass 
that  barrier  the  Sangamon  could  not  be  truthfully  set  down  on 
any  map  as  a  navigable  stream. 

There  was  but  one  way  of  overcoming  the  difficulty,  and 
enough  of  the  dam  was  promptly  torn  away  to  permit  the 
steamboat  to  pass.  On  she  went.  But  there  were  perils  before 
her  even  then ;  for  she  reached  the  shallow  water  above,  only 
to  find  that  it  was  hourly  getting  shallower,  and  that  the  river 
was  rapidly  falling.  The  experiment  had  been  faithfully  tried. 
The  inquirers  knew  just  how  far  they  could  take  just  such  a 
craft  up  the  Sangamon  at  somewhat  low  water. 

The  problem  now  remaining  was  how  to  get  her  down  the 
river  again,  and  it  seemed  a  serious  one ;  but  their  pilot  man- 
aged it  for  them.  He  is  said  to  have  been  paid  forty  dollars 


80  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

for  that  part  of  Ms  achievement ;  but  he  economically  walked 
all  the  way  home  from  Beardstown  to  New  Salem. 

Feat  after  feat  of  self-denial,  skill,  strength,  ingenuity,  and 
perseverance  were  telling  fast  upon  the  character  and  educa- 
tion of  Mr.  Offutt's  brawny  "  clerk."  It  was  especially  well  for 
him,  indeed,  that  he  should  learn  to  be  a  good  pilot  in  danger- 
ous and  "  falling"  waters. 


THE  BLACKHAWK  WAR.  81 


CHAPTEE  XII. 

THE    BLACKHAWK    WAR. 

Lincoln  a  Volunteer — Army  Discipline — Captain  Lincoln  under  Punish- 
ment— Going  to  a  New  School — Regulars  aiid  Volunteers — 1832,  A.D. 

ONE  reason  why  Mr.  Offutt  could  spare  his  foreman  for  a 
steamboat  trip  up  and  down  the  Sangamon  was  that  his  various 
mercantile  and  milling  enterprises  were  coming  to  a  disastrous, 
end.  One  after  another  he  was  compelled  to  give  them  up. 
Hardly  was  the  "  Talisman"  safe  in  the  lower  river,  before  her 
pilot  found  his  occupation  as  a  clerk  gone  from  him ;  his  em- 
ployer had  departed,  no  man  knew  whither,  and  the  store  was. 
closed. 

The  mill  returned  to  the  management  of  its  owners,  and  Abe 
Lincoln  was  once  more  utterly  adrift. 

Those,  however,  were  stirring  times  in  Illinois,  for  the  great 
war-chief  of  the  Sacs,  the  terrible  Blackhawk,  was  over  the 
northwestern  border  with  the  full  strength  of  his  tribe.  He  was 
said,  also,  to  have  f ormed  a  great  confederacy,  after  the  man- 
ner of  King  Philip,  Pontiac,  and  Tecumseh,  of  the  Winneba- 
goes,  Foxes,  Sioux,  Kickapoos,  and  other  tribes.  This  was  true 
enough;  but  the  whites  did  not  as  yet  know  how  completely 
the  savage  league  had  fallen  to  pieces. 

The  Governor  of  Illinois  was  calling  loudly  for  volunteers 
to  act  with  the  regular  forces  of  the  United  States  in  checking 
the  raid  of  the  red  men. 

There  had  been  a  good  deal  of  desultory  border  warfare  dur- 
ing the  previous  year,  and  some  Illinois  troops  had  taken  part  in 
it.  It  had  been  of  a  somewhat  bloody  nature  at  several  points, 
but  the  Indians  had  finally  retreated,  and  had  promised,  at  the 


82  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

end  of  the  campaign,  to  behave  themselves  more  peaceably 
in  future.  Their  promises  were  not  made  to  be  kept  any 
longer  than  until  presents  could  be  received  and  spring  should 
come  again.  They  had  broken  them  now,  and  it  was  necessary 
that  they  should  have  a  sharp  lesson  administered  to  them. 

The  military  experience  of  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  be- 
gun for  him  in  the  fall  of  1831,  when,  at  a  militia-muster  at 
Clary's  Grove,  the  "  boys"  had  chosen  him  captain  of  the  com- 
pany. He  was  not  present  when  elected,  but  accepted  the 
honor  thrust  upon  him,  made  a  speech  of  thanks,  and  served 
during  the  muster.  He  afterwards  said  that  if  he  had  not 
been  down  the  river  in  Offutt's  flatboat  in  the  spring  of  1831, 
he  should  have  surely  then  enlisted  among  the  volunteers  then 
called  out,  and  gone  to  the  frontier  instead  of  into  the  store  and 
mill. 

Now  there  was  something  on  hand  more  serious  than  a  mere 
•*'  muster,"  for  nearly  the  same  men  were  organizing  a  company 
for  active  service.  The  choice  of  a  captain  became  a  question  of 
importance.  There  were  but  two  candidates,  Lincoln  and  a  man 
:named  Kirkpatrick,  owner  of  the  sawmill  at  which  the  logs  had 
been  made  into  planks  for  Mr.  Offutt's  flatboat.  There  was  an 
old  grudge  between  them,  beginning  in  that  connection,  and  the 
rivalry  ran  high  until  the  votes  were  counted,  when  it  was  found 
that  Lincoln  had  beaten  his  competitor  "  out  of  sight."  It  was 
no  wonder,  for  the  men  who  had  voted  were  mostly  the  same 
who  had  stood  around  the  ring  and  seen  him  shake  Jack  Arm- 
strong, and  they  had  clear  notions  of  the  qualities  required  by 
a  man  whose  duty  it  would  be  to  keep  order  in  their  camp. 
He  must  have  the  necessary  muscles  and  fighting  pluck  to 
whip  any  rough  in  his  company,  or  he  was  no  captain  for  them. 
No  doubt  it  was  a  good  escape  for  Mr.  Kirkpatrick,  the  Clary's 
Grove  boys  themselves  being  judges. 

Neither  the  young  captain  nor  his  mutinous,  disorderly  re- 
cruits had  the  slightest  prophetic  idea  how  needful  it  was  that 
Abraham  Lincoln  should  be  taught  by  practical  experience  the 


THE  BLACKIIAWK  WAR.  S3 

difficulties  in  the  way  of  turning  raw  volunteers  into  soldiers. 
He  had  great  lessons  to  learn  in  the  few  short  weeks  of  the 
Blackhawk  War. 

The  volunteers  from  that  part  of  the  State  gathered  at 
Beardstown  and  Rushville  to  be  organized  into  regiments. 
Captain  Lincoln's  company  was  made  part  of  a  regiment  com- 
manded by  Colonel  Samuel  Thompson.  On  the  27th  of  April 
the  whole  force  marched  for  the  Black  River  country,  where 
Blackhawk  and  his  warriors  lay,  going  by  way  of  Oquaka,  on 
the  Mississippi. 

There  had  been  no  time  for  the  drill  or  discipline  of  that 
array  of  free  frontiersmen,  and  no  company  among  them  all 
stood  in  greater  need  of  both  than  did  the  one  which  had  mus- 
tered at  Clary's  Grove. 

What  could  men  know  of  the  first  duty  of  a  soldier,  when 
in  all  their  lives  they  had  never  been  taught  to  obey  anything? 
Even  their  captain  required  immediate  instruction.  While 
encamped  at  Henderson  Eiver — over  which  the  soldiers  had 
built  a  bridge,  so  rude  that  many  horses  were  lost  in  trying  to 
get  a  foothold  upon  it,  down  the  steep  bank — an  order  was 
issued  by  Gen.  Whiteside,  in  command  of  the  forces,  forbid- 
ding the  discharge  of  firearms  within  fifty  paces  of  the  camp 
limits. 

A  military  order  was  nothing  but  the  word  of  one  man,  and 
the  prohibition  must  mean  "  fifty  paces,  more  or  less,"  thought 
Captain  Lincoln,  and  so  he  discharged  his  pistol  recklessly, 
within  a  dozen  steps  of  the  given  line.  It  was  a  bad  mistake, 
since  the  forty  paces  he  had  failed  to  walk  measured  the  entire 
question  of  army  discipline  and  of  military  success  or  failure, 
and  it  was  eminently  needful  that  he,  of  all  men,  should  be 
made  to  understand  that  vital  matter. 

His  sword  was  taken  from  him,  and  he  was  put  under  arrest 
for  an  entire  day;  the  very  lightness  of  the  punishment  show- 
ing how  much  in  need  of  further  instruction  were  the  officers 
and  men  of  General  Whiteside's  volunteer  army. 


84  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

No  more  was  said  about  the  affair  after  that,  and  Captain 
Lincoln  returned  to  duty.  He  had  in  this  case  suffered  some- 
what for  a  fault  of  his  own;  but  he  was  shortly  to  incur  a  more 
severe  disgrace  for  a  sin  of  which  he  was  innocent.  So  he 
was  to  learn  how  easily  any  commander  may  be  ruined  by  un- 
faithful subordinates. 

From  Henderson  River  the  army  marched  to  Yellow  Banks, 
on  the  Mississippi,  where  they  were  visited  by  a  band  of 
Cherokees  from  the  Iowa  shore,  and  were  treated  to  a  war- 
dance.  Thence  a  sharp  push  forward  for  a  few  days  brought 
them  to  the  mouth  of  Rock  River  and  near  the  field  of  their 
expected  campaign.  From  that  place  they  were  to  advance  up 
the  river  about  fifty  miles  to  Prophetstown,  and  await  the  arri- 
val of  the  United  States  regular  troops  who  were  to  act  with 
them.  But  when  the  order  to  "  fall  in"  reached  the  company 
commanded  by  Captain  Lincoln,  it  could  not  be  complied  wifh. 

Aided  by  a  scapegrace  from  another  company,  and  without 
the  knowledge  of  their  strictly  temperate  commander,  the  men 
had  supplied  themselves  with  liquor  stolen  from  the  officers' 
quarters,  and  most  of  them  were  still  under  the  effects  of  it. 
It  was  all  in  vain  for  Captain  Lincoln  and  his  orderly  sergeant 
to  urge  the  wretched  drunkards  to  form  company.  Even  if 
they  consented  to  try,  they  could  not  keep  their  ranks,  and  too 
many  of  them  only  mocked  at  all  the  orders  given  them. 

The  army  moved  that  day  without  the  disgraced,  besotted 
squad,  and  it  was  ten  o'clock  before  Captain  Lincoln  could 
march  at  all.  Even  then  he  was  compelled  to  halt  by  the  way, 
that  his  mutinous  ruffians  might  sleep  off  the  vile  stupor  they 
had  brought  upon  themselves.  He  pushed  them  onward  after 
that,  and  rejoined  the  main  body  in  the  night,  only  to  find 
himself  once  more  put  under  arrest  and  compelled  to  wear  a 
wooden  sword  for  two  whole  days.  These  were  not  precisely 
the  military  honors  he  had  thirsted  for,  but  he  was  not  likely 
to  forget  either  their  causes  or  any  of  the  lessons  which  came 
with  them. 


THE  BLACKHAWK  WAR.  85 

Instead  of  waiting  at  Prophetstown  for  the  regular  troops  to 
arrive,  General  Whiteside  determined  to  push  on  towards 
Dixon,  forty  miles  further.  He  left  his  baggage-train  by  the 
way,  in  his  blind  haste  to  meet  an  enemy.  The  men  caught 
the  infection  of  his  inexperienced  recklessness  and  threw  away 
their  rations,  so  that  their  forced  march  brought  them  to  Dixon 
better  prepared  for  a  famine  than  a  fight.  They  were  joined 
there  by  two  battalions  of  mounted  men  as  rash  as  themselves, 
and  General  Whiteside  yielded  to  the  clamor  of  these  unwise 
horsemen  that  they  should  at  once  be  sent  forward  in  search 
of  Blackhawk  and  his  warriors. 

Alas  for  them!  Their  search  was  only  too  successful. 
They  found  an  ambuscade  of  seven  hundred  chosen  braves, 
commanded  by  the  chief  in  person.  In  a  few  hours  more  all 
that  were  left  of  the  two  battalions  came  straggling  back  to 
Dixon  with  the  bloody  story  of  "Stillman's  defeat."  The 
next  day  the  main  body  of  the  whites  moved  forward  to  the 
ghastly  scene  of  the  disaster ;  but  they  were  destitute  of  pro- 
visions, the  men  were  hungry  and  mutinous,  and  the  only  thing 
that  army  was  fit  to  do  was  to  march  back  and  wait  for  sup- 
plies and  for  better  leaders. 

There  was  much  fatigue  and  suffering  in  all  this  marching 
and  counter-marching,  and  Captain  Lincoln  shared  it  all  with 
his  men.  Their  personal  attachment  to  him  had  increased 
daily,  for  they  had  found  but  one  man  in  the  whole  army  who 
could  match  him  as  a  wrestler.  Even  then  there  was  a  dispute 
as  to  whether  Lincoln  was  fairly  thrown.  His  men  would  not 
admit  the  fact,  even  after  he  himself  frankly  acknowledged  it. 

He  had  need  of  all  his  popularity  one  day.  An  old  Indian 
came  rashly  into  camp,  trusting  to  the  protection  of  a  written 
passport  signed  by  General  Cass,  and  professing  to  be  a  friend 
of  the  white  men.  The  soldiery  was  smarting  under  defeats 
and  privations,  and  they  refused  to  believe  that  a  red  man 
could  be  other  than  a  sort  of  human  wild  beast,  whose  life  was 
forfeit  whenever  and  wherever  he  might  be  found. 


86  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  poor  old  savage  had  come  in  alone,  hungry,  helpless,  in 
search  of  food,  and  now  an  angry  mob  was  rushing  upon  him, 
seeking  to  murder  him.  His  last  moment  seemed  to  have 
arrived,  when  a  tall  man  in  the  uniform  of  a  captain  dashed 
through  the  crowd  and  stood  erect  in  front  of  him. 

"  Men !  this  must  not  be  done !  He  must  not  be  shot  and 
killed  by  us." 

His  very  body  seemed  to  be  growing,  as  the  righteous  anger 
swelled  hotly  within  him.  But  one  of  the  armed  mob,  after 
a  moment  of  amazed  silence,  found  voice  to  whine, 

"  But,  Captain,  that  there  Indian  is  a  damned  spy." 

There  were  swarms  of  brutal  and  thoughtless  men  around 
ready  to  catch  the  word,  and  for  a  few  moments  Lincoln's  own 
life  was  worth  but  little  more  than  that  of  the  old  red  man 
who  was  cowering  behind  him.  He  spoke  again,  passionately, 
powerfully,  waving  them  back  with  his  long  arms,  and  they 
were  beginning  to  grow  calmer  and  hear  reason,  when  another 
whine  arose : 

"  This  is  cowardly  on  your  part,  Lincoln." 

The  Captain's  temper  was  already  at  white  heat,  but  it 
blazed  yet  higher  as  he  fiercely  responded : 

"  If  any  man  thinks  I  am  a  coward,  let  him  test  it." 

There  was  still  another  despicable  snarl : 

"  "Well,  Lincoln,  you're  a  larger  and  heavier  man  than  any 
of  us." 

"  You  can  guard  against  that.     Choose  your  own  weapons." 

Every  line  of  his  dark  face  told  them  he  was  ready,  and  not 
a  coward  of  them  all  stepped  out  to  apply  the  test.  The  life 
of  the  vagrant  Indian  was  saved,  and  the  young  captain  who 
protected  him  had  won  the  brightest  laurel  gathered  by  any 
hero  of  the  Blackhawk  War,  although  he  was  never  actually 
under  fire  in  any  of  its  recorded  battles. 

All  this  shows  how  miserable  was  the  discipline  and  soldier- 
ship of  the  Illinois  volunteers  of  all  grades.  But  they  were  not 
without  cause  for  their  constant  complaints  and  insubordination. 


THE  BLACKHAWK  WAR.  87 

The  regular-army  officers  despised  the  volunteers  then,  as 
they  did  for  a  while  at  a  later  day  and  on  a  larger  scale ;  and 
their  prejudices  led  them  to  discriminate  in  the  issue  of  rations 
and  pay,  and  in  assignments  to  duty,  whenever  possible,  in 
favor  of  United  States  troops.  An  improper  order  came 
to  Captain  Lincoln  and  he  obeyed  it,  but  went  immediately 
afterwards  to  protest  in  person  against  the  injustice  done  his 
men  and  to  their  volunteer  comrades.  He  said  to  the  official 
concerned,  in  plain  words : 

"  Sir,  you  forget  that  we  are  not  under  the  rules  and  regula- 
tions of  the  War  Department  at  Washington  ;  are  only  volun- 
teers under  the  orders  and  regulations  of  Illinois.  Keep  in 
your  own  sphere  and  there  will  be  no  difficulty ;  but  resistance 
will  hereafter  be  made  to  your  unjust  orders.  And  further,  my 
men  must  be  equal  in  all  particulars,  in  rations,  arms,  camps, 
etc.,  to  the  regular  army." 

He  carried  his  point,  and  there  was  an  immediate  improve- 
ment in  the  management  of  affairs.  But  he  had  done  a  very 
extraordinary  thing.  Long  years  afterwards  it  was  to  become 
a  matter  of  national  importance  that  he  should  thoroughly  un- 
derstand the  nature  and  extent  of  the  perpetual  jealousy  be- 
tween the  Regular  Army  and  the  Volunteers ;  and  now  he  had 
mastered  the  entire  subject  once  for  all,  and  had  learned  pre- 
cisely how  the  resulting  difficulties  were  to  be  overcome. 

Here  was  a  change  indeed.  The  inner  man  of  the  bare- 
footed Indiana  plowboy  who  had  been  snubbed  by  John 
Breckinridge  for  daring  to  speak  to  him  had  already  grown 
amazingly.  He  had  reached  the  mental  and  moral  stature  of  a 
hero,  who  could  control  a  mob  of  ruffians  one  day,  and  force 
justice  from  the  astonished  insolence  of  epauleted  authority 
another. 

Every  man,  moreover,  who  found  himself  better  fed  and 
cared  for  in  consequence  of  that  bold  protest  was  likely  to  re- 
turn to  the  banks  of  the  Sangamon  with  a  high  opinion  and  a 
good  report  to  make  to  his  neighbors  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 


88  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  discontent  of  the  volunteers  was  just ;  but  it  rendered 
them  of  little  further  use  as  an  army.  At  their  own  request, 
they  were  marched  from  Dixon  to  Ottawa,  Illinois,  by  way  of 
Pawpaw  Grove,  and  there  disbanded  on  the  28th  of  May.  The 
best  material  for  soldiers  hi  the  whole  world  had  been  rendered 
worthless  in  four  weeks  by  incompetent  commanders  and  an 
inefficient  commissariat,  at  a  heavy  expense  to  the  public ;  but 
a  great-  deal  had  been  accomplished,  nevertheless,  in  the  need- 
ful instruction  given  to  one  young  captain. 

The  Governor  of  the  State  called  for  two  thousand  men  to 
take  the  places  of  the  disbanded  regiments,  and  a  large  number 
of  the  discharged  men  re-enlisted  at  once.  Officers  became 
privates  rather  than  go  home  in  such  an  inglorious  fashion. 
General  "Whiteside  himself  entered  the  ranks  as  a  common  sol- 
dier, and  so,  among  the  rest,  did  Captain  Lincoln,  as  a  member 
of  the  "  Independent  Spy  Company." 

By  the  middle  of  June  the  new  forces  were  ready,  and  they 
again  marched  up  the  banks  of  Rock  River.  In  the  mean 
time  Blackhawk  and  his  warriors  overran  the  country  they 
had  come  to  conquer  and  intended  to  keep. 

The  troops  were  fairly  well-handled  now,  and  the  campaign 
which  followed  was  a  vigorous  one,  resulting  in  the  utter  de- 
feat and  almost  the  destruction  of  the  savage  invaders.  But  the 
work  of  the  Independent  Spy  Company  included  little  fight- 
ing. There  was  a  great  deal  of  hard  work  done  by  them  in- 
deed. There  was  much  perilous  scouting,  with  fast  traveling 
as  messengers,  on  horseback  and  on  foot,  and  their  exposure 
to  danger  was  of  a  sort  that  they  did  not  need  to  be  ashamed 
of.  The  company  was  finally  disbanded,  and  the  men 
were  discharged  at  White  Water,  Wisconsin,  just  as  the  war 
was  drawing  to  a  close.  Lincoln  prepared  to  set  out  for 
home,  in  company  with  a  friend  and  comrade  named  George 
W.  Harrison.  Their  horses  were  stolen  from  them  the  night 
before  their  intended  start,  and  they  were  compelled  to  reach 
Peoria,  Illinois,  on  foot,  with  some  help  of  borrowed  rides 


THE  BLACKHAWK  WAR.  89 

on  the  horses  of  other  soldiers  who  were  going  in  the  same 
direction. 

Here  they  bought  a  canoe  and  paddled  down  the  Illinois 
Biver  until,  just  below  Pekin,  they  overtook  a  timber-raft.  It 
was  easy  to  make  friends  with  the  raftsmen,  in  whose  com- 
pany they  floated  lazily  down  stream  as  far  as  the  town  of 
Havana. 

The  rest  of  the  homeward  way  was  a  hot  and  tedious*  tramp 
across  country.  It  was  ended  in  due  time,  and  the  man  who 
went  out  as  a  captain  and  came  home  as  a  private  had  returned 
to  discover,  through  a  slow  and  painful  progress,  what  and 
how  much  his  army  career  had  done  for 


90  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK 

POLITICS. 

Lincoln  a  Candidate — Stumping  the  District — Defeat — The  Credit  Sjstem 
— Lincoln  a  Merchant.' 

THE  politics  of  the  United  States  were  in  a  noteworthy  con- 
dition in  the  year  1832.  There  were  parties,  and  party-spirit 
ran  high ;  but  party  organization,  such  as  now  controls  the 
country,  did  not  then  exist.  In  the  West  generally,  and  in  Il- 
linois in  particular,  the  complicated  machinery  which  was  al- 
ready in  process  of  formation  among  the  older  States  was 
wholly  unknown.  Instead  of  it  there  was  a  species  of  political 
chaos,  although  the  State  was  nominally  Democratic  in  its  ma- 
jorities, and  for  many  years  continued  to  be  so.  The  old  Fed- 
eral party  was  dead  and  buried,  the  Whig  party  was  yet  un- 
formed, and  men  wandered  hither  and  thither  among  the  great 
questions  of  the  day,  vainly  striving  to  discover  what  these 
were  and  whither  the  country  was  drifting. 

In  the  absence  of  nominating  conventions  large  or  small, 
it  was  the  custom  for  candidates  for  office  to  nominate  them- 
selves, if  they  could  persuade  a  few  friends  to  urge  them  to  do 
so.  One  consequence  of  this  was  that,  for  almost  any  elective 
honor,  high  or  low,  there  were  frequently  as  many  men  in  the 
field  as  candidates  as  could  combine  their  ambition  with  the 
energy  and  means  to  make  the  required  canvass.  For  the  lat- 
ter some  kind  of  personal  popularity  was  of  much  more  im- 
portance than  any  other  qualification. 

The  volunteers  who  went  from  Sangamon  County  to  the 
Blackhawk  War  returned  to  their  homes  in  squads  or  singly, 
the  greater  number  bringing  little  with  them  besides  their  very 


POLITICS.  91 

moderate  allowances  of  military  glory.  Abe  Lincoln  succeeded 
in  adding  to  Ms  own  share  of  this,  and  it  was  as  large  as  any- 
body's, an  intense  but  somewhat  local  popularity.  He  great- 
ly increased  his  fame  as  an  orator,  also,  by  a  speech  he  made 
in  the  New  Salem  debating  club  shortly  after  his  return. 
It  was  the  first  regular  "speech"  he  had  delivered  in  that 
community,  and  his  neighbors  were  ignorant  of  his  powers 
until  that  hour.  When  he  arose  to  begin,  the  audience  ex- 
pected no  more  than  a  well-told  story  and  a  good  joke  or  so, 
and  prepared  itself  accordingly  for  an  appreciative  laugh. 

Abe's  hands  were  in  his  pockets  at  the  first,  and  his  words 
came  to  him  slowly ;  but  he  was  not  there  for  the  purpose  of 
making  fun.  To  the  astonishment  of  his  hearers,  he  seriously 
took  hold  of  the  subject  before  them,  warmed  with  it  as  he 
went  on,  argued,  reasoned,  declaimed,  with  a  force  and  an 
awkward  eloquence  which  took  them  all  by  storm. 

Mr.  James  Rutledge,  the  owner  of  the  mill,  was  president 
of  the  club,  and  he  for  some  reason  felt  a  deep  interest  in  the 
coming  election  for  members  of  the  State  Legislature.  He 
was  very  strongly  impressed  by  that  speech,  and  a  few  days 
afterwards  he  urged  the  young  orator  to  offer  himself  as  a  can- 
didate. 

Lincoln  at  first  refused,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  little 
known  in  the  greater  part  of  the  county,  which  was  a  large 
one,  and  that  he  should  surely  be  defeated. 

"Perhaps  not,"  said  Mr.  Rutledge.  "They'll  know  you 
better  after  you've  stumped  the  county.  Anyhow,  it'll  do 
you  good  to  try." 

Other  friends  added  their  solicitations,  and  Lincoln's  modesty 
gave  way  under  the  pressure. 

It  seemed  a  tremendous  undertaking  for  a  mere  boy  who  the 
year  before  had  drifted  into  New  Salem  as  a  farm-hand  and  flat- 
boatman.  That  it  was  not  altogether  absurd  offers  a  window 
through  which  a  remarkably  good  view  can  be  obtained  of  the 
then  social  and  political  condition  of  things  in  Illinois. 


92  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  general  canvass  that  fall  was  hot  and  spirited,  for  it  was 
the  year  of  General  Jackson's  election  to  the  Presidency. 
Lincoln  had  from  boyhood  admired  "  Old  Hickory."  He  was 
still  nominally  a  "  Jackson  man,"  although  the  principles  he 
advocated  in  his  speeches  were  almost  identical  with  those 
upon  which  the  Whig  party  was  afterwards  built  up. 

The  politics  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  however,  were  agitated 
by  other  questions  besides  those  upon  which  the  nation  as  a 
whole  was  divided.  Candidates  for  the  Legislature,  even  more 
than  for  other  public  positions,  were  required  to  meet  their 
constituents  upon  numerous  topics  of  strictly  local  importance. 
The  State  was  fast  going  crazy  upon  the  subject  of  "  internal 
improvement."  Roads  of  all  kinds,  and  navigable  rivers  of 
designated  sizes  and  patterns,  were  wanted  in  all  directions. 
There  was  a  vague  idea  abroad,  daily  obtaining  a  strong  hold 
upon  the  minds  of  men,  that  all  these  could  be  provided  by  a 
majority  vote  of  the  State  Legislature  in  the  enacting  of  a 
"law." 

Lincoln  believed  that  a  great  deal  could  be  done  for  the 
Sangamon  River,  and  he  was  ready  to  prove  it  upon  stump 
after  stump.  He  was  also  earnestly  in  favor  of  laws  providing 
for  popular  education.  An  address  which  he  issued  to  his  con- 
stituents two  years  later  dealt  freely  with  this  and  other  topics, 
and  was  a  very  creditable  document  for  a  youth  of  twenty-five 
with  barely  a  year  of  aggregated  schooling  to  look  back  upon. 
He  now  issued  no  address,  but  he  had  had  some  training  for 
the  task  set  before  him,  and  he  took  hold  of  it  vigorously. 

A  canvass  of  Sangamon  County  was  not  in  those  days  a 
matter  for  a  man  of  weak  body  or  sensitive  nerves  to  think  of 
lightly.  It  meant  a  going  from  place  to  place  wherever  a 
crowd  could  be  gathered,  and  a  readiness  to  face  boldly  not 
only  any  assembly  of  proposed  hearers,  but  also  such  other 
assemblages  as  might  propose  to  interfere  with  both  speaking 
and  hearing.  There  were  fair  copies  of  Clary's  Grove  and  its 
gang  of  roughs  in  almost  every  precinct,  and  all  this  element 


POLITICS.  93 

•was  sure  to  make  itself  heard  and  felt  in  election-time.  At 
one  place,  while  Lincoln  was  speaking,  a  friend  of  his  became 
engaged  in  a  fight  and  was  getting  the  worst  of  it.  So  was  the 
speech,  by  reason  of  the  divided  interest  and  attention  of  the 
crowd.  The  orator  left  the  "  stump"  to  interfere,  but  one  of 
the  men  in  his  way  refused  to  let  him  pass.  There  could  be 
no  hesitation  on  the  part  of  the  "  candidate."  The  impeding 
person  was  promptly  seized  by  the  nape  of  the  neck  and  the 
seat  of  his  trowsers,  was  pitched  away  many  feet  into  the  grass, 
the  friend  in  trouble  was  rescued,  and  then  the  interrupted 
speech  was  resumed  under  better  auspices. 

There  were  other  candidates  traversing  Sangamon  County 
upon  the  selfsame  errand ;  men  who  were  better  known  and 
whose  political  strength  had  been  previously  developed.  It 
was  no  disgrace  to  Lincoln  that  he  failed  of  an  election  by  four 
hundred  and  seventy  votes.  New  Salem  precinct  stood  by 
him  manfully.  There  were  two  hundred  and  eighty  votes 
cast  there,  and  he  got  all  but  three  of  them.  The  shaking  of 
Jack  Armstrong,  the  Blackhawk  War,  with  all  the  other 
brilliant  exploits  of  Mr.  Offutt's  clerk,  had  bound  his  neighbors 
to  him  for  life  and  death.  If  there  had  been  voters  enough  in 
New  Salem,  he  could  have  been  elected  to  anything. 

Now  that  he  was  beaten  at  the  polls — for  his  good — it  be- 
came necessary  for  Lincoln  to  look  around  him  for  some  other 
occupation  than  that  of  making  laws  for  the  State. 

He  was  fond  of  playing  with  the  children  of  his  friends,  and 
he  was  always  ready  to  chop  wood  or  do  any  other  kindly  act 
for  the  utterly  poor  around  New  Salem.  His  hand  was  out  to 
every  man.  But  all  this  would  not  buy  clothes  or  law-books, 
or  pay  for  board. 

He  was  living  at  the  time  with  an  intimate  friend  named 
Herndon,  one  of  two  brothers  who  kept  a  store  in  the  village. 
Besides  theirs,  another  was  carried  on  by  a  man  named  Rad- 
ford,  and  still  another,  a  smaller  one,  by  Mr.  Kutledge,  the 
owner  of  the  mill. 


94  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  course  of  these  three  establishments  at  this  time  was 
somewhat  remarkable. 

"  Jim"  Herndon  became  dissatisfied  and  sold  his  interest  to 
a  loose  character  named  Berry.  "Row"  Herndon  quarreled 
with  his  new  partner  in  six  weeks,  and  sold  his  share  to  Abe 
Lincoln.  The  Clary's  Grove  roughs  had  a  grudge  against 
Radford,  and  one  night  they  came  to  town  and  took  it  out  by 
smashing  his  windows.  They  scared  him  so  badly  that  he  sold 
the  wreck  of  his  establishment  at  once  to  Bill  Green  on  credit 
for  four  hundred  dollars.  The  firm  of  Lincoln  &  Berry  the 
next  day  bought  out  Bill  Green,  also  "  on  time,"  giving  him 
their  note  of  hand  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  profit  on 
his  sudden  bargain.  Then  Mr.  Rutledge  sold  Lincoln  &  Berry 
his  own  little  grocery,  and  the  new  concern  united  the  three 
"  stores"  in  one,  naving  given  little  for  them  all  besides  their 
own  "notes  of  hand."  Their  rivals  in  business,  destined  to 
survive  them,  were  the  firm  of  Hill  &  McNeil. 

Almost  all  business  was  done  upon  the  credit  cystem  in  those 
days.  It  continued  so  to  be  until  a  long  succession  of  financial 
disasters  had  taught  men  the  value  of  hard  cash  and  short  set- 
tlements. 

Lincoln  was  now  a  merchant ;  beginning  his  career  under  a 
load  of  debt,  and  with  the  yet  heavier  burden  of  an  idle,  dis- 
solute, extravagant,  uttterly  worthless  partner. 

It  required  no  longer  time  than  the  vinter  months  of  1832- 
1833  to  determine  the  fate  of  such  an  undertaking,  and  the 
firm  of  Lincoln  &  Berry  sold  out  in  their  turn,  and  "  on  time," 
to  a  couple  of  brothers  named  Trent. 

The  store  was  lifted  from  Lincoln's  shoulders,  if  the  debts 
were  not.  These  could  not  begin  to  press  him  for  some  months 
to  come,  and  he  could  turn  his  attention,  meantime,  to  some 
other  means  of  earning  a  livelihood.  He  was  still  boarding 
with  "  Row"  Herndon,  and  he  was  working  hard  at  all  the  law- 
books  he  could  lay  his  hands  on.  He  gave  to  these  every  hour 
he  could  spare  for  them.  But  something  else  had  now  to  be 
done  if  he  would  live  to  study. 


POLITICS.  95 

Once  more  the  pathway  to  success  seemed  for  a  moment  to 
be  barred  before  him,  and  once  more  an  altogether  unlooked- 
for  opening  appeared. 

Mr.  Calhoun,  surveyor  of  Sangamon  County,  was  overrun 
with  business,  and  needed  an  assistant.  Immigrants  and  land- 
buyers  were  pouring  into  the  prairie  country  in  a  constantly 
increasing  stream.  It  was  necessary  that  their  demands  should 
be  met,  and  that  the  surveying  called  for  should  be  honestly 
and  faithfully  done.  The  temptations  to  carelessness  and  cor- 
ruption were  many.  Mr.  Calhoun  knew  Abe  Lincoln  and 
trusted  him  thoroughly.  He  also  knew  him  to  be  ignorant  of 
surveying,  but  he  went  to  see  him  about  it.  He  took  with  him 
a  book  of  instruction  in  the  art,  and  told  Abe  that  as  soon  as 
he  should  be  ready  to  go  to  work  he  should  have  as  much  as 
he  could  do. 

That  was  enough  for  the  man  of  iron  perseverance.  He 
took  the  book  on  surveying  and  went  out  into  the  country  to 
board  with  Minter  Graham,  the  same  schoolmaster  with  whom 
he  had  consulted  about  English  grammar.  In  six  weeks  he 
was  ready  to  report  to  Mr.  Calhoun  for  service.  They  had 
been  weeks  of  precisely  such  unflinching  mental  toil  as  he  had 
for  so  long  a  time  trained  himself  to  endure. 

Thenceforward  there  was  no  danger  but  what  he  could  pay 
his  board-bills.  His  work  was  found  to  stand  all  tests  of  ac- 
curacy, and  Mr.  Calhoun  kept  his  word  about  giving  him 
enough  of  it.  In  all  the  intervals  of  that  employment  he  strug- 
gled on  with  his  law-books.  He  even  walked  all  the  way  to 
Springfield  and  back  to  borrow  of  a  friend  there  a  volume  he 
could  not  afford  to  buy. 

Once  more  a  public  employment  came  to  him,  though  a  mar- 
velously  small  one,  for  on  the  7th  of  May,  1833,  he  was  ap- 
pointed postmaster  of  New  Salem.  There  is  no  record  of 
where  he  kept  that  "  post-office,"  but  there  is  a  legend  that  he 
kept  it  in  his  hat.  The  people  of  New  Salem  had  few  corres- 
pondents, and  the  mail  did  not  arrive  every  day.  Indeed,  one 


96  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  the  special  and  important  duties  of  the  postmaster  was  to 
read  and  even  to  write  letters  for  those  whose  lack  of  educa- 
tion forbade  their  doing  either  for  themselves.  Here  was  a 
curious  mixture  of  occupations,  truly ;  but  there  was  life  for 
the  present  and  hope  for  the  future.  The  prospect  would 
not  have  been  at  all  gloomy  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  store 
and  the  cloud  of  debts  which  hung  over  it. 

The  Trent  brothers  kept  the  business  going  for  a  few  months, 
and  then  they  gave  it  up  and  ran  away,  never  again  to  be  heard 
of  in  New  Salem.  Berry  also  departed  from  the  scene  of  his 
misbehavior.  He  did  not  live  long  afterwards.  Even  before 
he  went  away,  the  accumulated  load  of  debt  for  all  those  rash 
purchases  "  on  time"  came  drifting  back  upon  the  shoulders  of 
the  one  honest  and  hard-working  man  whose  name  was  signed 
to  the  notes  of  hand. 

Abraham  Lincoln  could  not  run  away.  Still  less  could  he 
pay  the  notes.  He  was  able  to  make  arrangement  for  the  fu- 
ture payment  of  such  of  them  as  were  held  by  his  friends,  for 
every  man  of  them  trusted  his  honesty  entirely  and  never 
dreamed  of  pressing  him.  In  their  eyes  he  was  an  ill-used 
man,  and  his  misfortunes  in  business  made  them  more  his 
friends  than  ever.  One  only  of  the  notes  had  drifted  away 
through  the  hands  of  successive  holders  beyond  all  friendly 
control.  It  was  the  one  for  four  hundred  dollars  given  to  Mr. 
Kadf ord  for  the  wreck  of  his  store  and  stock  the  night  before 
the  day  on  which  Bill  Green's  good  bargain  had  been  taken  off 
his  hands.  This  piece  of  paper  was  now  held  by  a  Mr.  Yan 
Bergen,  and  he  sued  upon  it,  and  of  course  obtained  an  imme- 
diate judgment  against  Lincoln.  An  execution  was  issued,  and 
the  iron  hand  of  the  sheriff  was  held  out  for  all  the  debtor's 
personal  property.  His  few  books  could  not  be  touched,  under 
the  exemption  law,  but  his  horse,  saddle,  bridle,  surveyor's  in- 
struments of  all  kinds,  the  tools  of  his  new  trade,  were  seized 
upon  without  pity.  Their  loss  might  take  away  his  means  of 
livelihood  and  break  up  his  growing  business,  but  it  could  not 


POLITICS.  97 

really  set  him  back  one  step  behind  the  point  to  which  he  had 
so  steadily  worked  his  way.  Among  the  many  friends  he  had 
made  was  a  well-to-do  farmer  named  Short,  and  this  man,  un- 
solicited, joined  Lincoln  in  giving  to  the  sheriff  the  needful 
bond  that  the  goods  should  be  delivered  on  the  day  of  sale,  so 
that  their  owner  could  use  them  meantime. 

Lincoln  did  not  attend  the  sale  of  his  property,  but  Mr. 
Short  was  there  with  another  of  his  friends  named  Greene. 
Between  them  they  bought  back  all  that  the  sheriff  had 
seized,  at  the  sum  of  two  hundred  and  forty-five  dollars.  They 
divided  their  outlay  nearly  equally  between  them,  and  at  once 
turned  over  their  purchases  to  the  man  they  had  come  to  help, 
waiting  for  repayment  until  he  should  be  able  to  earn  the. 
money. 

The  remainder  of  that  summer  was  a  busy  time  for  the  post- 
master, the  deputy  county  surveyor,  and  the  one  law-student, 
of  New  Salem.  To  all  his  other  work  was  now  added  the  con- 
tinual reference  to  him  of  small  legal  matters,  such  as  the: 
drawing  up  of  deeds  and  other  papers.  He  even  "petti- 
fogged" small  cases  before  justices  of  the  peace,  but  for  all 
these  acts  of  neighborly  kindness  he  never  thought  of  charg- 
ing a  fee.  Nor  was  this  all  the  duty  forced  upon  him  by  the 
unbounded  confidence  men  had  acquired  in  his  fairness  and 
integrity. 

The  one  great  sport  of  that  region  was  horse-racing.  There 
were  many  horses  of  many  kinds,  and  there  was  a  continual 
succession  of  "  matches"  between  them,  but  the  human  beings 
were  few  indeed  by  whose  decisions,  as  judges  of  the  result, 
all  contestants  were  willing  to  abide.  Much  against  his  will, 
therefore,  Abe  was  frequently  compelled  to  yield  to  the  unani- 
mous popular  demand,  and  sit  in  "  the  judges'  stand "  while 
the  horses  were  running.  He  had  plenty  of  disputes  to  settle, 
but  it  was  of  no  use  for  any  disappointed  or  quarrelsome  jockey 
to  appeal  from  or  severely  criticise  a  decision  made  by  Abe 
Lincoln.  Once  uttered,  it  had  all  the  force  of  law. 


98  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN, 

In  spite  of  his  hard  study  and  his  lack  of  any  bodily  toil  to 
maintain  the  hardness  of  his  muscles,  his  strength  seemed  to 
increase  rather  than  diminish.  Harnessed  by  shoulder-straps 
to  a  box  of  stones  weighing  half  a  ton,  he  lifted  it  repeatedly 
and  with  ease.  This  and  other  feats  of  a  similar  nature  enabled 
him  to  maintain  his  place  as  a  keeper  of  the  peace  and  a  recog- 
nized disturber  of  all  ruffianism.  No  fight  could  be  fought 
out  in  the  old-time  way  if  Lincoln  were  at  hand  to  interfere 
with  it.  It  was  so  easy  for  him  to  take  an  angry  man  in  each 
hand  and  hold  two  foolish  fellows  wide  apart,  until  they  should 
agree  with  him  to  let  the  matter  drop  and  make  the  quarrel  up. 
As  a  rule,  moreover,  at  least  one  of  the  two  men  was  likely  to 
think  more  highly  than  ever  of  the  rough  peacemaker. 


FIRST  LOVE.  99 


CHAPTEK  XIV. 

FIRST  LOVE. 

A  true  Romance — Elected  to  the  State  Legislature — A  new  Suit — Free 
thinking. 

THE  honest  and  upright  ambition  of  Abraham  Lincoln  to 
make  a  man  of  himself  had  needed  no  spurring.  There  were 
within  him  springs  of  life  and  thought  as  yet  unopened  and  of 
whose  existence  he  was  hitherto  ignorant.  These  were  now  to 
be  discovered  to  him,  and  a  new  and  strong  incentive  to  exer- 
tion was  to  add  its  power  to  the  other  forces  which  were  urg- 
ing him  upward. 

The  third  child  of  Mr.  James  Rutledge,  Lincoln's  devoted 
friend  and  admirer,  was  a  girl  of  high  principle  and  uncom- 
mon beauty.  In  all  the  country  around  there  was  no  maiden 
to  be  compared  with  fair  Ann  Butledge.  Her  mental  accom- 
plishments were  only  such  as  could  then  be  obtained  in  Illinois 
by  the  daughter  of  a  country  merchant  of  intelligence  and 
property,  but  they  were  sufficient.  She  could  not  fail  to  have 
admirers ;  and  when,  in  the  second  year  of  Lincoln's  New  Salem 
life,  he  came  to  board  for  a  while  with  her  father,  she  was  al- 
ready promised  in  marriage  to  his  friend  McNeil,  a  young  and 
thriving  trader  and  farmer  of  New  Salem.  There  came  to  her 
soon  afterwards  a  strange,  romantic  history.  Her  betrothed 
revealed  to  her  the  fact  that  his  name  was  not  McNeil  but 
McNamar,  and  that  he  had  so  concealed  his  identity  in  coming 
West  that  he  might  build  a  fortune  unknown  to  his  family 
and  then  return  to  care  for  his  father  in  his  old  age.  He  was 
now  closing  up  his  business,  turning  his  property  into  money, 


100  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  would  go  to  New  York,  perform  his  purpose  there,  and 
come  back  to  wed  the  girl  who  had  given  him  her  heart. 

She  heard  and  she  believed  him,  and  he  went  but  he  did  not 
come  again.  He  wrote  to  her  of  his  father's  sickness  and 
death.  Then  other  letters  came,  at  longer  and  longer  intervals, 
always  promising  to  return  and  holding  her  to  her  engagement, 
until  at  last  their  coming  ceased  entirely. 

It  was  a  cruel,  a  terrible  thing  to  fall  upon  a  girl  of  nine- 
teen, for  she  had  loved  him  well  until  she  had  found  him  false. 
The  one  bitterer  drop  was  added  to  her  cup  of  trouble  when 
she  found  that,  during  all  that  time,  she  had  been  winning  the 
heart  of  a  man  whose  faith  could  not  be  broken  and  whose  in- 
tegrity and  manly  Vorth  all  other  men  acknowledged. 

More  and  more  frequent  grew  the  visits  of  the  young  law- 
student  as  the  prospect  of  McNamar's  return  diminished,  but 
with  little  encouragement  from  Ann  until  the  summer  of  1834. 
Her  father's  farm  was  but  a  small  distance  from  that  of  Lin- 
coln's friend  Short,  and  Abe  found  many  occasions  for  spend- 
ing whole  days  together  at  the  house  of  the  man  who  so  timely 
aided  him. 

Ann  was  as  true  as  she  was  beautiful,  and  she  at  last  was 
compelled  to  tell  her  urgent  suitor  frankly  what  bond  it  was 
that  bade  her  not  to  love  him.  She  refused,  in  her  sensitive 
good  faith,  to  see  that  she  could  be  set  free  from  her  promise- 
to  McNamar  without  a  formal  spoken  or  written  release.  She 
could  no  longer  love  a  man  who  had  broken  his  word,  had 
slighted  her,  had  treated  her  with  a  neglect  so  heartless,  but 
she  was  slow  to  admit  her  right  to  take  another  in  his  place. 
And  yet  she  had  already  taken  him,  and  Lincoln  knew  it,  and 
he  gave  to  her  all  the  unmeasured  strength  of  his  first,  whole- 
hearted love. 

It  was  a  loyal  and  manly  thing  to  do.  No  other  thing  of 
which  he  had  yet  shown  himself  capable  told  half  so  much  for 
the  growth  of  his  inner  life  or  promised  half  so  well. 

He  had  something  to  li ve  for  now.     He  had  a  hope  more 


FIRST  LOVE.  101 

bright  and  beautiful  than  any  dream  he  had  dreamed,  whether 
among  the  forests  of  Indiana,  the  rivers  and  bayous  of  the 
South,  or  the  wealth-promising  prairies  where  he  had  chosen 
his  home.  He  worked  as  he  had  never  worked  before,  toiling  at 
his  law-books  as  he  rode  or  walked  about  the  country.  On  one 
hot  march,  from  Springfield  home,  with  a  volume  of  Black- 
stone's  Commentaries  he  had  borrowed,  he  mastered  forty  pages 
of  it  before  he  reached  New  Salem.  With  him  to  "  master"  a 
book  was  to  seal  its  contents,  as  to  their  spirit  and  meaning,  and 
largely  as  to  their  letter,  in  his  memory  forever,  ready  for  all 
subsequent  uses. 

There  was  no  need  for  any  urgent  friend  to  prompt  his  po- 
litical ambition  now.  He  was  thirsting  for  such  honors  as 
would  mark  him  as  a  man  fitted  to  court  and  win  Ann  Rut- 
ledge.  He  well  knew  she  would  be  pleased  to  see  him  win 
them  for  her,  even  while  she  reluctantly  adhered  to  her  roman- 
tic scruple  concerning  her  broken  bond. 

Since  the  previous  campaign  the  political  world  had  under- 
gone apparent  changes,  and  the  Whig  party  was  taking  form. 
Its  principles  were  nearly  those  which  Lincoln  had  already 
avowed,  and  he  readily  floated  into  it.  Still,  all  party  lines 
were  as  yet  so  loosely  drawn  that  his  Democratic  personal 
friends  were  under  no  necessity  of  refusing  him  their  votes, 
whatever  they  might  do  with  other  names  upon  their  tickets. 
He  announced  himself  as  a  candidate  for  election  to  the  State 
Legislature,  issued  a  printed  address  to  the  people  of  the 
county,  and  made  a  thorough  stumping  tour  from  neighborhood 
to  neighborhood.  He  spoke  as  he  had  never  before  spoken, 
and  was  triumphantly  elected  although  there  were  other  strong 
candidates  in  the  field. 

In  the  summer  of  the  year  1831  he  had  landed  in  Sangamon 
County,  a  penniless,  friendless  boy  of  twenty-two.  -Only  three 
years  later  there  were  1376  men  in  the  same  county  ready  to 
say  by  their  votes  that  he  was  a  suitable  person  to  represent 
them  at  the  State  capital. 


102  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

He  had  been  growing  fast  in  other  ways  than  in  the  good- 
will of  his  fellow-citizens ;  but  he  had  not  outgrown  his  hon- 
esty nor  his  debts.  These  had  joined  hands  to  keep  him  poor 
in  purse,  and  a  proper  sense  of  personal  dignity  forbade  him  to 
go  to  the  Capitol  at  Yandalia  in  the  shabby  clothing  which 
was  good  enough  for  his  daily  round  of  life  and  work  in  New 
Salem.  Money  would  also  be  required  for  other  immediate 
expenses,  and  there  was  nothing  in  his  hands  that  he  could 
honestly  se*ll  to  obtain  it.  He  was  already  deeply  in  debt  to 
his  best  friends,  and  his  salary  as  a  legislator  could  not  be  col- 
lected in  advance.  He  had  resources,  however,  and  they  did 
not  fail  him. 

Among  his  older  acquaintances  was  a  man  named  Smoot,  as 
dry  a  joker  as  himself,  but  better  supplied  with  ready  money. 
To  him  Lincoln  went  one  day,  in  company  with  another  friend, 
Hugh  Armstrong. 

"  Smoot,  did  you  vote  for  me  P 

"  I  did  that  very  thing." 

"  Well,  that  makes  you  responsible*  You  must  lend  me  the 
money  to  buy  suitable  clothing,  for  I  want  to  make  a  decent 
appearance  in  the  Legislature." 

"  How  much  do  you  want?" 

"  About  two  hundred  dollars,  I  reckon." 

The  honor  of  Sangamon  County,  and  of  New  Salem  in  par- 
ticular, was  at  stake,  and  the  new  representative  received  his 
two  hundred  dollars  on  the  spot. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  guess  whose  eyes  were  among  the  first 
to  discover  how  great  a  difference  good  clothing  could  make  in 
the  outer  man  of  Ann  Kutledge's  tall  lover.  The  new  gar- 
ments and  the  body  under  them  were  but  a  shell,  however, 
inclosing  the  man  to  whom  she  was  really  surrendering  her 
heart. 

There  were  long  weeks  yet  before  Lincoln's  new  public 
duties  were  to  begin,  and  not  an  hour  of  one  of  them  could  he 
afford  to  waste.  He  read  as  desperately  as  ever,  and  he  was 


FIRST  LOVE.  103 

also  thinking  deeply  upon  other  subjects  besides  law.  There 
was  but  little  religion  of  any  kind  in  and  about  New  Salem,  or 
through  all  the  prairie  country,  in  those  rude  days.  Such  as 
there  was  would  hardly  stand  any  exhaustive  analysis.  Few 
men  gave  any  especial  care  to  matters  of  faith  or  doctrine. 
There  were  many  more  horse-races  and  wrestling-matches  than 
Gospel  gatherings.  The  exceptional  preaching  was  of  a  nature 
little  calculated  to  impress  a  mind  like  that  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. Moreover,  there  was  a  jarring  of  sects  and  creeds,  here 
and  there,  as  in  'other  communities  always,  and  out  of  this 
came  vastly  more  of  contention  than  Christianity.  If  what  he 
saw  around  him  were  all  there  was  of  religion,  it  required  less 
effort  to  reject  than  to  accept  it ;  but  the  searching  mind  of 
the  young  thinker  compelled  him  to  make  some  sort  of  personal 
inquiry.  His  first  teachers  were  about  as  bad  as  could  have 
been  given  him,  and  he  was  not  yet  prepared  to  penetrate  the 
shallow  reasoning  of  Volney  and  Tom  Paine.  He  even  tried 
to  follow  out  their  lines  of  thought  in  an  elaborate  manuscript, 
and  when  this  was  finished  he  read  it  to  a  little  circle  in  the 
store  of  Mr.  Samuel  Hill.  There  were  those  present  who 
thought  well  of  it,  but  a  son  of  Mr.  Hill  expressed  his  own 
opinion  in  the  plain  word  "  infamous,"  took  the  paper  in  his 
hand  and  thrust  it  into  the  fire.  There  was  nearly  enough  of 
it  for  a  small  book,  but  it  burned  well  and  Lincoln  very  sen- 
sibly let  it  burn. 

He  did  not  know  how  closely  he  was  following  in  the  foot- 
steps of  the  great  majority  of  those  who  honestly  seek  for  the 
Truth.  Still  less  could  he  then  foresee  the  day  when  he  should 
himself  kneel  down  and  lead  a  whole  nation  in  prayer  and 
fasting  and  thanksgiving  and  confession  of  sin,  and  that  in 
their  darkest  hour  of  trial  he  should  rise  before  them  to  en- 
courage them  to  trust  in  the  very  God  whose  existence  he  was 
now  in  callow  fashion  persuading  himself  to  deny. 

All  true  thinkers  are  necessarily  "  free  thinkers"  until  they 
enter  into  some  description  of  bonds  to  their  own  self-conceit 


104  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  surrender  their  freedom  to^  that  miserable  taskmaster. 
Lincoln  began  as  a  free  inquirer,  and  never  fell  in  with  the 
mob  of  bondmen,  but  went  on  learning  more  and  more  until 
the  very  end.  That  at  such  a  time  he  exercised  himself  so 
deeply  on  such  a  subject  is  an  invaluable  index  to  the  formative 
processes  of  his  inner  life. 

The  time  at  last  arrived  for  his  journey  to  the  Capitol  of  the 
State,  then  at  Vandalia,  in  the  southern  part  of  the  long,  huge 
area  of  Illinois.  Thanks  to  Mr.  Smoot's  friendly  loan,  he  was 
well  prepared  to  go  with  proper  dignity,  and  to  make  a  pre- 
sentable appearance  among  his  fellow-legislators.  He  had  but 
a  hundred  miles  or  so  to  travel,  but  that  short  journey  carried 
him  on  into  a  new  sphere  of  lif e  and  action. 


IN  THE  LEGISLATURE.  1Q5 


CHAPTEK  XV. 

IN  THE  LEGISLATURE. 

Practical  Politics— Lessons  in  Public  Finance — Blowing  Bubbles — A  great 
Darkness— 1834-36. 

ME.  LINCOLN  had  now  attained  a  position  which  was  full  of 
promise.  The  power  of  binding  men  to  him  by  ties  of  strong 
personal  attachment  had  been  born  with  him.  The  capacity 
for  influencing  and  controlling  them  when  assembled  as  citi- 
zens for  the  discussion  of  political  questions  had  been  devel- 
oped in  him  remarkably  and  almost  without  his  knowledge. 
He  was  now  to  study  and  acquire  the  art  or  trade  of  managing 
a  drove  of  selfish  politicians.  The  material  for  such  a  training 
was  gathered  for  him  in  perfection  at  Yandalia.  He  found 
himself  surrounded  by  narrow-minded,  ignorant  embodiments 
of  party  prejudice,  local  jealousy,  self-seeking,  and  self-conceit. 
In  such  a  mob  he  could  not  help  becoming  a  man  of  some 
mark,  but  during  the  greater  part  of  that  first  "  session"  of 
1834-1835  he  neither  sought  nor  attained  especial  prominence. 
He  was  as  yet  a  student  of  politics,  not  ready  to  be  an  active 
worker  and  still  less  a  leader.  Of  many  things  he  knew  as 
much  as  did  the  majority  of  his  fellow-legislators,  and  of 
some  things  he  knew  a  great  deal  more,  but  he  was  slow  to  tell 
them  so.  Few  of  them,  at  all  events,  could  equal  him  in  tell- 
ing a  story  with  a  keen  point  to  it,  and  none  surpassed  him  in 
personal  height  or  in  the  peculiar  heartiness  of  manner  which 
made  him  so  speedily  at  home  amid  his  new  surroundings. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  education  as  a  political  manager,  he 
was  also  at  the  beginning  of  a  long  course  of  experimental  in- 
struction as  to  what  could  and  what  could  not  safely  be  done 


106  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

with  public  credit.  He  was  to  be  taught  fundamental  truths 
of  finance  concerning  a  State  or  a  nation,  that  he  might  not, 
in  after-days,  come  ignorantly  and  without  experience  to  the 
discussion  and  arbitrary  decision  of  precisely  such  questions, 
relating  to  a  wider  field  than  that  of  the  very  young  and  now 
half -crazy  State  of  Illinois. 

Lincoln  believed  in  a  general  system  of  public  improvements, 
and  so  did  almost  everybody  else ;  but  the  common  accord 
ceased  at  that  point.  Beyond  it  lay  a  tangled  mass  of  problems 
as  to  methods  of  procuring  money  wherewith  to  improve,  and 
right  along  with  these  came  a  chaos  of  discord  and  contention 
as  to  how  and  where  it  should  be  spent,  and  which  of  the  out- 
reaching,  grasping  local  interests  should  first  be  served.  The 
State  was  out  of  debt  and  its  credit  stood  well  in  the  money 
markets.  It  could  readily  borrow  whatever  it  might  need.  It 
had  sovereign  power  to  create  banks,  and,  through  these,  an 
unlimited  capacity  for  the  issue  of  paper  money.  The  whole 
population  was  gambling  in  town-lots,  lands,  and  almost  every 
other  kind  of  property. 

Illinois  was  by  no  means  alone  in  her  gambling  fever.  A 
somewhat  similar  condition  of  affairs  existed  elsewhere,  North, 
South,  East,  and  West. 

As  for  the  Legislature,  not  a  soul  in  Yandalia  knew  the  first 
principles  of  finance  or  political  economy.  There  had  been  as 
yet  no  teaching  given  to  the  New  Salem  member  of  a  sort  to 
open  his  eyes  to  the  fragility  of  the  bubbles  he  and  his  asso- 
ciates were  about  to  inflate.  All  looked  well,  and  nothing 
seemed  requisite  except  the  soapsuds  of  the  State  credit  and  the 
creative  breath  of  the  Legislature. 

The  speculative  mania  did  not  rise  to  fever-heat  during  that 
first  winter,  but  some  very  fine  bubbles  were  blown.  A  State 
bank  was  chartered,  with  a  "  capital "  of  a  million  and  a  half. 
A  broken-down  money-mill  of  a  bank  in  the  wretched  village 
of  Shawneetown,  in  the  southern  part  of  the  State,  was  set 
running  again  by  a  law  which  declared  that  it  had  three  hun- 


IN  THE  LEGISLATURE.  107 

dred  thousand  dollars  to  run  with.  The  State  borrowed  half  a 
million  of  actual  dollars,  and  began  to  spend  them  on  the 
western  end  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal.  Nothing  was 
done  for  the  Sangamon  River,  and  that  and  other  incomplete 
streams  were  compelled  to  postpone  for  a  while,  at  least,  their 
ambition  of  becoming  "  navigable."  Their,  friends,  however, 
were  firmly  determined  that  the  State  credit  and  statute  law 
should  yet  supply  them  with  deep,  well-made  channels  and  an 
abundance  of  river-water,  and  thus  everybody  living  along  the 
banks  of  them  would  be  rich  at  once.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  as- 
signed a  place  upon  the  Committee  on  Public  Accounts  and 
Expenditures.  It  was  a  good  enough  corner  in  which  to  study 
and  acquire  the  information  he  stood  most  in  need  of,  but  he 
did  not  bring  an  ounce  of  practical  preparation  to  the  legisla- 
tive work  set  before  him.  He  toiled  away  at  his  task,  never- 
theless, and  at  the  end  of  the  session  he  returned  to  his  New 
Salem  home  and  his  law-books. 

The  year  1835  seemed  to  open  brightly  enough,'  but  its  com- 
ing weeks  and  months  were  bringing  Lincoln  deeper  and  sad- 
der lessons  than  any  which  had  yet  been  given  him.  He  had 
already  discovered  in  himself  the  germs  of  remarkable  facul- 
ties. He  had  cultivated  all  industriously  and  with  success, 
under  the  most  adverse  circumstances.  There  was  in  his  grow- 
ing soul  yet  one  more  power  of  whose  very  existence  he  was 
but  dimly  conscious.  It  was  the  power  of  suffering  ;  the  fa- 
culty of  feeling  inward  pain  more  deeply,  more  keenly,  than 
other  men,  and  of  keeping  and  carrying  it  longer.  The  related 
capacity  for  concealment  did  not  come  at  the  same  time,  but 
was  to  be  developed  later,  when  there  should  be  greater  need 
of  it,  that  he  might  not  fail  in  doing  the  duties  whose  needful 
performance  should  entail  the  suffering. 

It  is  not  known  precisely  when  Ann  Rutledge  told  her  sui- 
tor that  her  heart  was  his,  but  early  in  1835  it  was  publicly 
known  that  they  were  solemnly  betrothed.  Even  then  the 
scrupulous  maiden  waited  for  the  return  of  the  absent  MoNa- 


108  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

mar,  that  she  might  be  formally  released  from  the  obligation 
to  him  which  he  had  so  recklessly  forfeited.  Her  friends  ar- 
gued with  her  that  she  was  carrying  her  scruples  too  far,  and 
at  last,  as  neither  man  nor  letter  came,  she  permitted  it  to  be 
understood  that  she  would  marry  Abraham  Lincoln  as  soon  as 
his  legal  studies  should  be  completed. 

That  was  a  glorious  summer  for  him ;  the  brightest,  sweet- 
est, hopefullest  he  yet  had  known.  It  was  also  the  fairest 
time  he  was  ever  to  see ;  for  even  now,  as  the  golden  days  came 
and  went,  they  brought  an  increasing  shadow  on  their  wings. 
It  was  a  shadow  that  was  not  to  pass  away.  Little  by  little 
came  indications  that  the  health  of  Ann  Rutledge  had  suffered 
under  the  prolonged  strain  to  which  she  had  been  subjected. 
Her  sensitive  nature  had  been  strung  to  too  high  a  tension,  and 
the  chords  of  her  life  were  beginning  to  give  way. 

There  were  those  of  her  friends  who  said  that  she  died  of  a 
broken  heart,  but  the  doctors  called  it  "  brain-fever." 

On  the  25th  of  August,  just  before  the  summer  died,  she 
passed  away  from  earth.  But  she  never  faded  from  the  heart 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  She  lived  there  in  love  and  memory  to 
the  very  last.  In  her  early  grave  was  buried  the  best  hope  he 
ever  knew,  and  the  shadow  of  that  great  darkness  was  never 
entirely  lifted  from  him. 

A  few  days  before  Ann's  death,  a  message  from  her  brought 
her  betrothed  to  her  bedside,  and  they  were  left  alone.  No 
one  ever  knew  what  passed  between  them  in  the  endless  mo- 
ments of  that  last  sad  farewell;  but  Lincoln  left  the  house 
with  inexpressible  agony  written  upon  his  face.  He  had  been 
to  that  hour  a  man  of  marvelous  poise  and  self-control,  but  the 
pain  he  now  struggled  with  grew  deeper  and  more  deep,  until, 
when  they  came  and  told  him  she  was  dead,  his  heart  and  will, 
and  even  his  brain  itself,  gave  way.  He  was  utterly  without 
help  or  the  knowledge  of  possible  help  in  this  world  or  beyond 
it.  He  was  frantic  for  the  time,  seeming  even  to  lose  the  sense 
of  his  own  identity,  and  all  New  Salem  said  that  he  was  insane. 


IN  THE  LEGISLATURE.  1Q9 

He  piteously  moaned  and  raved,  "  I  can  never  be  reconciled  to 
have  the  snow,  rains,  and  storms  beat  upon  her  grave !" 

The  very  earth  her  body  slept  in  gathered  to  its  grassy  cover- 
ing somewhat  of  the  unutterable  tenderness  the  strong  man  felt 
for  his  first  love.  His  best  friends  seemed  to  have  lost  their 
influence  over  him,  and  he  resisted  their  kindly  efforts  at  com- 
fort or  control  with  all  the  gloomy  peevishness  and  even  the 
cunning  of  a  madman. 

All  but  one ;  for  the  same  Bowlin  Greene  who  had  helped 
Short  save  his  property  for  him  at  the  sheriff's  sale  came  now 
again  to  the  rescue.  He  managed  to  entice  the  poor  fellow  to 
his  own  home  a  short  distance  from  the  village,  there  to  keep 
watch  and  ward  over  him  until  the  fury  of  his  sorrow  should 
wear  away.  There  were  well-grounded  fears  lest  he  might  do 
himself  some  injury,  and  the  watch  was  vigilantly  kept.  In  a 
few  weeks  reason  again  obtained  the  mastery,  and  it  was  safe 
to  let  him  return  to  his  studies  and  his  work.  He  could  indeed 
work  again,  and  he  could  once  more  study  law,  for  there  was  a 
kind  of  relief  in  steady  occupation  and  absorbing  toil ;  but  he 
was  not,  could  not  ever  be,  the  same  man.  In  time  even  the 
joke  and  the  laugh  would  come  to  his  lips,  but  they  would 
never  cease  to  have  the  appearance  and  character  of  brief  sun- 
shine breaking  through  a  cloud,  and  there  was  always  a  great 
storm  of  rain  resolutely  held  back  in  the  inner  darkness  of  that 
cloud. 

Lincoln  had  been  fond  of  poetry  from  boyhood,  and  had 
gradually  made  himself  familiar  with  large  parts  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  and  the  works  of  other  great  writers.  He  now 
discovered  in  a  strange  collection  of  crude  verses,  by  an  un- 
known hand,  the  one  poem  which  seemed  best  to  express  the 
morbid,  troubled,  sore  condition  of  his1  mind.  Those  who  then 
or  afterwards  heard  him  repeat  the  lines  by  William  Knox, 
beginning — 

"  Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?" 


HO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

discovered  what  a  wealth  of  pathetic  expression  could  be 
poured  forth  through  them.  Uttered  by  him  as  the  voice  of 
his  suffering,  they  took  into  their  mournful  cadences  a  power 
and  a  majesty  borrowed  from  the  grief  which  drove  Abraham 
Lincoln  from  the  grave  of  Ann  Kutledge  broken-hearted  and 
all  but  insane. 

All  men  in  that  vicinity  well  knew  the  sad,  romantic  story, 
and  there  were  no  hearts  on  the  Sangamon  prairies  so  hard 
that  they  were  not  touched  by  the  sorrow  of  their  friend  and 
neighbor.  His  popularity  increased  daily  as  he  went  about 
among  them,  thin,  haggard,  gloomy,  and  he  was  more  than 
ever  the  idol  of  New  Salem.  The  winter  passed  away,  and 
then  the  spring,  and  another  summer  brought  with  it  a  renewal 
of  political  excitement.  There  was  no  longer  any  question  as 
to  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  should  be  elected  to  the  Legislature. 
Thenceforward  his  place  upon  the  Whig  ticket  was  a  matter 
of  course  so  long  as  he  should  consent  to  such  a  use  of  his 
name.  There  was  nothing,  therefore,  to  mark  for  him  espe- 
cially the  campaign  of  1836,  except  the  fact  that  he  stumped 
the  county  and  received  a  greater  number  of  votes  than  was 
given  to  any  other  candidate  who  ran  for  the  Legislature  that 
year.  In  fact,  among  a  population  so  shifting,  changing,  grow- 
ing, he  was  already  becoming  one  of  the  older  and  earlier  set- 
tlers, and  the  majority  of  his  fellow-citizens  were  new  men 
compared  to  him. 


BUBBLE  LEGISLATION.  HI 


CHAPTEE  XYI. 

BUBBLE     LEGISLATION. 

An  Episode — The  Lightning-rod — The  Long  Nine— State  Improvements — 
Anti-slavery  Declarations — 1836. 

THERE  is  nothing  else  on  earth  so  easily  to  be  taken  posses- 
sion of  as  an  empty  house,  whether  or  not  the  new  occupant 
may  be  or  become  the  owner. 

"When  Lincoln  returned  to  work  and  to  political  excitement 
he  also  necessarily  returned  to  the  society  of  women.  He 
sorely  needed  all  three,  and  every  other  attainable  help,  to  keep 
his  mind  in  order.  It  could  hardly  be  called  well  regulated  as 
yet,  and  his  emotional  nature  was  entirely  out  of  gear.  Kind 
and  busy  friends,  moreover,  came  to  the  rescue,  and,  by  their 
management,  in  the  autumn  of  1836  he  found  himself  corre- 
sponding with  an  attractive  young  lady  named  Mary  Owens. 
He  had  not  at  all  forgotten  Ann  Rutledge,  and  the  matter 
would  be  hard  to  understand  if  so  many  of  the  letters  which 
passed  between  the  two  had  not  been  preserved  and  actually 
printed.  They  offer  a  sufficient  explanation,  for  they  make 
very  plain  the  fact  that  there  was  no  feeling  aroused  on  either 
side  at  all  worthy  to  be  spoken  of  as  "  love."  She  was  hand- 
some, well  educated,  intelligent,  with  enough  of  good  sense  to 
admire  a  strong  and  rising  man.  He  was  restless,  feverish, 
unsettled,  hungry  at  heart — he  did  not  know  for  what ;  and  so 
there  grew  up  an  intimacy,  a  friendship,  a  protracted,  strug- 
gling imitation  of  a  courtship  and  engagement.  From  the 
latter  they  were  both  finally  glad  to  release  each  other. 

It  is  entirely  just  to  say  of  Mr.  Lincoln  that  during  that 
brief  period  of  his  life  he  knew  very  little  of  himself.  The 


112  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

continual  developments  of  his  nature  and  its  powers  must  now 
and  then  have  brought  surprises  to  him,  but  it  is  a  curious  fact 
that  nobody  eke  seems  ever  to  have  been  greatly  surprised. 
He  was  a  man  from  whom  uncommon  performances  were  ex- 
pected. 

In  joke  or  in  earnest,  or  in  somewhat  of  both,  one  of  the  first 
public  utterances  in  behalf  of  female  suffrage  came  from  his 
pen.  In  a  printed  declaration  of  his  principles,  issued  during 
the  canvass  for  that  year's  election,  he  said  among  other  things : 

"  I  go  for  all  sharing  the  privileges  of  the  government  who 
assist  in  bearing  its  burdens.  Consequently  I  go  for  admitting 
all  whites  to  the  right  of  suffrage  who  pay  taxes  or  bear  arms 
— by  no  means  excluding  females." 

The  subject  was  not  then  under  discussion  in  Illinois,  but 
Mr.  Lincoln's  after-course  proved  how  prompt  and  decided  was 
sure  to  be  his  response  to  any  appeal  to  his  sense  of  justice. 

The  style  of  his  oratory  was  now  rapidly  improving,  and  his 
speeches  became  occasional  surprises  even  to  those  who  knew 
him  best  and  expected  most  of  him.  He  wasted  nothing  upon 
mere  display,  but  then,  as  afterwards,  he  exhibited  a  marvelous 
capacity  for  using  to  advantage  the  smallest  available  fact  or 
circumstance  within  his  reach  at  the  moment.  The  smaller 
and  sharper  might  be  the  point  of  any  thrust,  the  deeper  he 
was  apt  to  drive  it  home. 

A  good  illustration  of  this  faculty  is  found  in  a  speech  of 
his,  in  the  campaign  of  1836,  in  reply  to  a  Mr.  Forquer.  This 
gentleman  had  deeply  offended  all  notions  of  political  morality 
by  a  recent  desertion  of  the  Whigs,  and  the  feeling  against  him 
was  very  bitter.  He  was  a  man  of  wealth  and  standing,  Reg- 
ister of  the  United  States  Land  Office  at  Springfield,  owning 
the  best  "  frame  house"  in  that  town.  From  the  roof  of  this 
residence  arose  the  one  solitary  lightning-rod  in  all  that  part 
of  the  State,  and  it  had  attracted  more  than  a  little  popular  at- 
tention. 

At  a  political  meeting  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  speech  of  more 


BUBBLE  LEGISLATION.  113 

than  common  power,  to  Mr.  Forquer's  especial  disgust  and 
astonishment.  He  replied  ably  but  superciliously,  beginning 
with  the  rash  assertion  that  "  the  young  man  would  have  to  be 
taken  down."  Throughout  his  remarks  he  asserted  and 
claimed  his  personal  superiority.  Lincoln  listened  attentively, 
and  at  the  end  of  Mr.  Forquer's  speech  he  took  the  stand 
again.  He  replied  with  force  and  dignity  to  whatever  of 
argument  he  had  to  deal  with,  but  at  the  conclusion  of  his 
remarks  he  turned  upon  his  lofty  opponent  with, 

"  You  began  your  speech  by  announcing  that  '  this  young 
man  would  have  to  be  taken  down.' " 

Turning  again  to  the  crowd,  he  added : 

"  It  is  for  you,  not  for  me,  to  say  whether  I  am  up  or  dowiu 
The  gentleman  has  alluded  to  my  being  a  young  man.  I  am- 
older  in  years  than  I  am  in  the  tricks  and  trades  of  politicians. 
I  desire  to  live,  and  I  desire  place  and  distinction  as  a  politi- 
cian ;  but  I  would  rather  die  now  than,  like  the  gentleman,, 
live  to  see  the  day  when  I  would  have  to  erect  a  lightning-rod, 
to  protect  a  guilty  conscience  from  an  offended  God." 

Nevertheless  that  solitary  lightning-rod  led  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
a  study  and  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  electricity.  Right  there 
was  a  difference  between  him  and  the  other  men  who  stared  at 
the  novel  iron  ornament  upon  Mr.  Forquer's  roof.  He  alone 
could  make  a  spear  of  it,  in  a  speech,  wherewith  to  transfix  its 
owner,  and  then  accept  it  as  a  directing  finger  pointing  Tn'rq 
the  way  to  a  new  field  of  scientific  inquiry. 

He  had  made  such  good  use  of  his  first  term  in  the  Legisla- 
ture that  on  his  return  he  at  once  took  rank  as  an  able  debater 
and  parliamentarian.  He  was  also  skilled  in  the  tactics  re- 
quired in  securing  majorities  for  his  favorite  schemes. 

The  politics  of  the  State  had  now  become  more  closely  con- 
nected with  those  of  the  country  at  large. 

The  subject  of  State  banks,  carrying  with  it  all  questions  of 
local  finance,  was  interwoven  with  the  management  of  the 
United  States  Treasury  and  the  fate  of  the  United  States 


114  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Bank.  At  the  same  time,  the  policy  of  the  general  govern- 
ment with  reference  to  its  sales  of  public  lands  was  nowhere 
of  more  importance  than  in  Illinois. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  brain  was  teeming  more  fruitfully  than  ever 
with  projects  for  public  improvements.  The  example  of  New 
York  was  continually  before  him,  and  he  had  formed,  with 
reference  to  the  canals  of  his  own  State,  the  high  ambition  of 
becoming  "the  De  Witt  Clinton  of  Illinois."  There  was 
nothing  mean  or  low  in  such  an  aspiration  in  the  mind  of  a 
young  man  who  was  only  separated  by  five  short  years  from 
the  deck  of  a  flatboat  and  by  less  than  three  from  bankruptcy, 
poverty,  and  the  sheriff's  hammer. 

He  served  upon  the  Committee  on  Finance.  The  ideas 
of  State  credit  entertained  by  that  committee  may  be  gathered 
from  the  facts,  among  many,  that  for  the  furtherance  of  canal 
and  other  enterprises  laws  were  passed  authorizing  loans  to 
the  amount  of  twelve  millions  of  dollars.  The  money  was  to 
be  obtained  by  the  sale  of  State  bonds,  and  was  then  to  be 
employed  in  quite  a  variety  of  ways.  It  was  fully  believed 
that  into  the  State,  improved  by  that  expenditure,  a  flood  of 
immigration  would  surely  and  swiftly  roll,  to  open  farms, 
pay  taxes,  and  so  to  make  the  bonds  good  property  in  the 
hands  of  the  imaginary  capitalists  who  were  now  to  buy  them. 

The  passage  of  a  "  law"  creating  capitalists  for  the  occasion 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  thought  of,  but  the  nominal  capital 
of  the  State  Bank  and  of  other  banks  was  largely  increased, 
that  they  might  issue  abundant  notes,  and  so  that  "  money" 
might  be  plentiful. 

Small  blame  rightly  attaches  to  any  of  the  untutored  legis- 
lators who  proposed  or  voted  for  all  these  wonderful  schemes 
for  making  all  men  rich  at  railway  speed.  They  knew  no 
better  until,  at  last,  the  bursting  of  their  own  pretty  bubbles, 
with  all  the  other  bubbles  the  whole  nation  had  been  blowing, 
sent  them  back  to  their  constituencies  sadder  and  wiser  men. 

One  other  project  was  kept  continually  in  the  foreground 


BUBBLE  LEGISLATION.  115 

by  that  Legislature.  The  seat  of  the  State  government,  at 
Yandalia,  was  too  far  from  the  geographical  center.  It  was 
inconvenient,  unpopular,  and  there  were  several  other  towns, 
some  of  them  even  more  badly  situated,  whose  citizens  were 
eager  to  have  the  advantages  of  a  "  capital "  within  their  cor- 
porate limits. 

For  many  reasons  the  young  city  of  Springfield,  in  Lincoln's 
own  county  of  Sangamon,  seemed  entitled  to  the  preference. 
Every  man  of  the  county  representatives  could  discern  those 
reasons  clearly  and  argue  them  convincingly.  There  were  nine 
of  these  gentlemen,  two  in  the  Senate  and  seven  in  the  lower 
house,  and  their  bodily  size  had  acquired  for  them  the  title  of 
"  the  Long  Nine."  Taken  together,  they  were  fifty-four  feet 
long  ;  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  having  a  surplus  of  four  inches  to 
contribute  in  making  up  the  average  of  six  feet.  They  were 
tireless  workers  and  well  skilled  in  the  art  of  influencing  their 
associates.  They  so  arranged  the  removal  of  the  capital  to 
Springfield  that  it  was  firmly  wedged  into  a  combination  of  all 
the  other  schemes,  and  the  bill  for  it  was  passed  in  the  last 
hours  of  the  session.  It  was  an  enduring  piece  of  work,  and 
the  State  is  governed  from  that  town  at  the  present  time. 

Mr.  Lincoln  could  now  return  to  Sangamon  County  and 
New  Salem  with  a  consciousness  that  he  had  done  for  his  en- 
thusiastic constituents  at  least  as  much  as  they  could  reasonably 
expect  of  him.  He  had,  however,  done  one  thing  more,  and  a 
greater  and  worthier  thing  than  any  success  he  had  won  as  an 
advocate  of  internal  improvement  or  the  removal  of  the  State 
capital.  He  had  made  a  bold,  clear  record  of  his  views  upon 
the  subject  of  human  slavery. 

The  Legislature  adjourned  upon  the  4th  of  March,  and  on 
the  previous  day,  the  3d,  with  but  one  solitary  comrade, 
Daniel  Stone,  Abraham  Lincoln  presented  to  the  House,  and 
had  read  and  spread  upon  the  journals  of  record,  the  follow- 
ing protest : 

"  Resolutions  upon  the  subject  of  domestic  slavery  having 


116  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

passed  both  branches  of  the  General  Assembly  at  its  present 
session,  the  undersigned  hereby  protest  against  the  passage  of 
the  same. 

"  They  believe  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded  on 
both  injustice  and  bad  policy ;  but  that  the  promulgation  of 
abolition  doctrines  tends  rather  to  increase  than  to  abate  its 
evils. 

"  They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has 
no  power,  under  the  Constitution,  to  interfere  with  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery  in  the  different  States. 

"  They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  has 
the  power,  under  the  Constitution,  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  but  that  the  power  ought  not  to  be  exer- 
cised unless  at  the  request  of  the  people  of  the  District. 

"  The  difference  between  these  opinions  and  those  contained 
in  the  said  resolutions  is  their  reason  for  entering  this  protest. 

"  DAN.  STONE, 
"A.  LINCOLN, 
"  Representatives  from  the  county  of  Sangamon." 

Only  two  men  in  that  numerous  body  climbed  high  enough, 
at  that  time,  or  had  the  courage  to  declare  that  human  slavery 
was  "  founded  on  injustice  and  bad  policy,"  whatever  might  be 
their  opinion  of  the  force  of  the  existing  laws  by  which  it  was 
protected.  It  was  a  bold  thing  to  do,  in  a  day  when  to  be  an 
antislavery  man,  even  at  the  North,  was  to  be  a  sort  of  social 
outcast  and  political  pariah.  Twenty  years  were  to  roll  away 
before  a  great  party  was  to  adopt,  as  its  platform  of  principles, 
declarations  nearly  equivalent  and  but  little  more  advanced 
than  the  brave  protest  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln  induced  his 
friend  Dan  Stone  to  join  him. 

That  was  the  first  public  fruit  of  the  flatboat  studies  of  hu- 
man slavery  away  down  the  Mississippi  River,  and  other  views 
of  it  obtained  in  the  slave-market  at  New  Orleans.  The  neces- 
sary moral  education  for  persisting  in  making  such  a  record 


BUBBLE  LEGISLATION.  117 

had  been  received  through  "object-lessons,"  and  the  actual 
sight  of  slave  and  whip,  and  brand  and  fetters,  and  the  barter 
and  sale  of  human  flesh  and  blood. 

Lincoln  had  struck  his  first  blow  in  the  great  warfare,  and  it 
was  as  hard  a  stroke  as  the  occasion  permitted.  It  was  a  regis- 
tered prophecy  that  he  would  strike  again  in  the  fullness  of 
time  and  when  another  opportunity  should  be  given  him. 


118  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER  XYH. 

THE   YOUNG   LAWYER. 

Admitted  to  the  Bar — Honest  Poverty — The  Panic  of  1837— Politics  again 
— Matrimonial  tendencies — Another  Darkness. 

UNDER  every  disadvantage  and  in  spite  of  all  manner  of  in- 
terruptions and  Mndrances,  Mr.  Lincoln  steadily  pursued  the 
study  of  the  law.  Early  in  the  year  1837  he  was  admitted  to 
practice.  He  could  not  hope  to  build  up  a  law  business  at  "New 
Salem,  and  at  once  removed  to  Springfield. 

Here  he  sooned  formed  a  partnership  with  John  P.  Stuart, 
the  same  kind  friend  from  whom  he  had  borrowed  law-books 
in  the  by-gone  years,  when  he  was  glad  to  walk  to  Springfield 
for  them  and  read  them  all  the  long  walk  home. 

The  young  lawyer  was  still  poor.  He  took  his  meals  at  the 
very  respectable  residence  of  Hon.  "William  Butler,  a  political 
friend,  but  he  slept  on  a  narrow  lounge  in  the  law-office  of 
Stuart  &  Lincoln,  in  the  second  story  of  the  court-house  build- 
ing. He  had  debts  to  pay,  and  he  was  steadily,  honestly  pay- 
ing them ;  not  in  any  way  wasting  a  dollar  of  other  people's 
money.  He  was  dealing  with  vast  sums  as  a  legislator,  and  the 
expenditure  of  these  and  the  management  of  the  many  bubble 
schemes  of  the  day  were  mixed  and  tainted  with  fraud,  corrup- 
tion, and  bribery.  Everybody  knew  this;  but  it  was  also 
known  that  the  most  active  advocate  of  public  improvement 
among  the  Illinois  legislators  could  not  afford  to  hire  himself  a 
small  room  in  a  Springfield  boarding-house.  The  bitterest 
tongue  of  political  detraction  never  ventured  to  assail  his  per- 
sonal honor.  Had  any  man  been  so  silly  as  to  question  Lin- 


TEE   YOUNG  LAWYER.  119 

coin's  integrity,  at  that  or  any  subsequent  time,  he  would  but 
have  covered  himself  with  derision. 

The  Springfield  bar,  in  those  days,  numbered  among  its 
members  many  men  of  more  than  common  ability.  There 
were  some,  indeed,  whose  names  were  soon  to  be  familiar  to 
the  whole  country.  It  was  not,  therefore,  because  his  com- 
petitors were  few  or  weak  that  Lincoln  rapidly  advanced  to  a 
foremost  position  as  a  sound  and  able  lawyer.  From  the  out- 
set he  was  compelled  to  fight  his  way  against  men  every  way 
capable  of  testing  his  powers  to  the  uttermost,  and  there  was 
none  of  them  whose  apparent  educational  advantages  had  not 
been  greater  than  his  own. 

The  year  1837  was  marked  in  the  history  of  the  United 
States  by  the  severest  financial  crisis  the  country  had  experi- 
enced since  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War.  On  the  10th 
of  May  the  banks  of  New  York  suspended  specie  payments ; 
and  on  the  12th  the  Bank  of  the  United  States  and  those  of 
Philadelphia  followed  the  example  so  set  them.  Fast  and  far 
the  ruin  spread  in  all  directions.  In  July  the  Governor  of  Il- 
linois called  a  special  session  of  the  State  Legislature,  to  see  if 
something  could  not  be  done  for  the  epidemic  bankruptcy  by 
the  passage  of  medicinal  laws. 

The  first  act  which  was  passed  had  the  effect  of  permitting 
all  the  banks  in  the  State  to  suspend  specie  payments.  Noth- 
ing was  done,  however,  to  prevent  them  issuing  further  paper 
promises  to  pay  the  money  they  did  not  have  and  could  not 
hope  to  obtain.  Neither  was  any  step  taken  towards  dimin- 
ishing the  current  outlay  for  internal  improvements.  More 
loans  were  actually  authorized,  and  the  State  went  on  flounder- 
ing deeper  and  deeper  into  the  Dismal  Swamp  of  disaster  pre- 
pared for  it  by  its  crazy  people  as  represented  by  young  Lin- 
coln and  all  the  other  "  De  "Witt  Clintons  of  Illinois." 

When  all  had  been  done  that  could  be  devised,  the  legislators 
from  a  distance  went  home  to  their  constituents.  There  was 
no  more  mischief  to  be  feared  from  them  until  another  election 


120  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

should  call  them  together.  Mr.  Lincoln  remained  in  Spring- 
field, resuming  what  there  was  of  his  law  practice  and  the  slow 
process  of  wiping*  out  his  debts. 

All  idea  of  marrying  Mary  Owens  seems  to  have  left  him 
early  in  1838.  Nothing  more  would  ever  have  been  heard  of 
that  affair  if,  in  after-years,  its  futile  record  had  not  been  disin- 
terred too  zealously  from  old  letter-boxes  and  doubtful  mem- 
ories. One  value  of  it  now  is  the  testimony  so  borne  to  the 
fact  that  not  even  his  admitted  abilities  were  as  yet  considered 
by  many  a  social  set-off  to  his  gaunt,  ungainly  person,  his 
awkward,  unpolished  manners,  and  the  serious  deficiencies  of 
his  early  training  and  family  connections.  He  had  broken 
through  every  barrier  but  that  of  "caste."  That,  too,  was 
yet  to  go  down  before  him,  and  he  was  one  day  to  take  his 
seat,  uncrowned  indeed,  but  throned,  among  the  kings  of  the 
earth. 

It  was  nearly  a  matter  of  course  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  be 
again  elected  to  the  Legislature  in  1838  ;  and  when  that  body 
came  together  he  was  the  candidate  of  the  Whig  party  for 
Speaker  of  the  House.  The  Democratic  nominee,  Mr.  Ewing, 
was  elected  by  a  small  majority  ;  but  the  unquestioned  leader- 
ship won  by  Lincoln  at  so  early  a  day  is  worthy  of  especial 
notice.  The  same  honorable  nomination  was  given  him  by  his 
party  in  the  succeeding  Legislature,  and  with  the  same  foregone 
result,  for  the  Democrats  were  in  power. 

In  that  year,  1840,  occurred  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of 
American  political  campaigns,  resulting  in  the  election  of 
General  Harrison  as  President  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  a  candidate  for  Presidential  Elector  on  the  Whig 
ticket,  and  he  "  stumped  "  a  large  part  of  the  State  in  company 
and  contest  with  the  leading  orators  of  the  opposite  party. 

For  the  first  time  his  reputation  became  other  than  some- 
what local,  and  his  tall  form  began  to  be  familiar  .to  the  eyes 
of  the  general  public  of  Illinois.  Once  seen,  once  heard,  there 
was  no  danger  that  he  would  ever  be  forgotten.  Prior  to  that 


THE  TOUN&  LAWYER.  121 

date  he  had  done  something  as  a  lecturer,  but  only  within  a 
narrow  circle  of  small  audiences. 

He  was  now  approaching  a  second  crisis  of  his  moral  and 
emotional  nature,  and  one  which  proved  to  be  terribly  severe. 

Among  his  especial  friends  in  Springfield  were  Mr.  Ninian 
Edwards  and  his  family.  Mrs.  Edwards  was  a  daughter  of 
Hon.  Eobert  S.  Todd  of  Lexington,  Kentucky,  and  her  sister 
Mary,  a  bright,  witty,  and  handsome  young  woman,  came  to 
reside  with  her  at  about  the  time  of  the  removal  of  the  State 
capital  to  Springfield,  in  the  year  1839. 

Mr.  Lincoln  found  himself  constantly  thrown  into  the  society 
of  a  well-educated,  cheerful,  and  in  some  respects  fascinating 
young  lady.  It  was  not  long  before  he  began  to  listen  to  the 
suggestions  of  her  friends  and  his  own  that  he  had  better 
marry  Mary  Todd.  He  deeply  felt  his  utter  loneliness.  The 
idea  of  a  home  had  a  charm  that  was  all  its  own,  for  that  was  a 
gift  which  had  hitherto  been  denied  him.  Miss  Todd  herself, 
though  from  a  family  of  much  pretension  to  "  position,"  had  a 
keen  perception  of  the  ability  and  worth  of  the  rising  young 
lawyer.  He  was  poor ;  he  was  fettered  and  clogged  by  many 
disadvantages  of  person,  manner,  education,  history ;  but  she 
was  a  young  woman  of  more  than  ordinary  penetration  and 
good  sense.  She  saw  that  here  was  a  man  worthy  of  any 
woman,  and  her  mind  speedily  settled  itself  in  his  favor  with  a 
firmness  which  was  afterwards  proof  against  all  trials.  It  was 
not  long  before  a  formal  betrothal  resulted.  He  was  by  no 
means  her  only  suitor,  but  had  rivals  for  her  favor  whose 
worldly  prospects,  as  compared  with  his  own,  relieve  Miss  Todd 
of  any  imputation  that  she  was  influenced  in  her  choice  by 
mere  ambition.  It  is  said  that  at  one  time,  being  asked  which 
of  her  admirers,  Lincoln  or  Douglas,  she  preferred,  she  laugh- 
ingly replied,  "The  one  that  has  the  best  chance  of  being 
President."  It  is  amusing  enough  now  to  note  how  some  men 
look  back  gravely  to  that  merry  conversation  and  accuse  the 
lively  Kentucky  girl  of  exercising  the  gift  of  prophecy,  instead 


122  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  consulting  her  own  heart,  in  deciding  between  two  active 
young  politicians  in  a  new-born  Western  State. 

Lincoln  was  now  engaged  to  be  married,  and  his  purpose 
might  have  drifted  smoothly  onward  to  fulfillment  if  it  had 
not  been  for  the  arrival  of  yet  another  member  of  the  Edwards 
family.  This  was  a  Miss  Matilda  Edwards,  the  sister  of  his 
friend.  She  was  very  fair,  and  quickly  became  the  reigning 
belle  of  Springfield.  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  much  of  her  and  felt 
drawn  towards  her  irresistibly.  She  had  a  secret  to  unfold  to 
him ;  an  unveiling  of  his  inner  life  to  perform  for  him. 
What  might  be  her  mission  he  did  not  know  or  understand  for 
a  while.  He  even  imagined  the  emotion  now  stirring  within 
him  to  be  a  love  for  Miss  Edwards,  although  he  never  told  her 
so.  Looking  upon  her  face,  however,  he  discovered  that  he 
was  not  in  love  with  Miss  Todd,  and  that  his  engagement  with 
the  latter  was  based  upon  no  better  foundation  than  respect, 
admiration,  and  a  keen  sense  of  his  own  need  of  a  wife  and 
home.  Upon  that  discovery  followed  another  like  an  electric 
shock,  and  he  went  at  once  to  Miss  Todd  to  offer  her  a  release 
from  her  engagement.  Had  her  heart  been  as  lightly  bound 
as  his,  there  could  have  been  but  one  result ;  but  the  interview 
did  not  end  in  a  release.  The  young  man's  keen  sense  of  honor 
was  in  the  way  of  that,  and  this  was  reinforced  by  a  deeper, 
stronger,  sadder  consideration.  He  could  not  confide  to  her 
the  real  reason  of  his  apparent  change,  although  he  could  freely 
disavow  any  intention  or  hope  of  obtaining  Miss  Edwards. 
But  for  this,  indeed,  jealousy  would  have  come  to  the  quick 
and  somewhat  fiery  spirit  of  Miss  Todd,  and  Lincoln  would 
have  been  spared  a  part,  at  least,  of  the  sharp  agony  in  store 
for  him.  He  went  away,  carrying  his  secret  with  him,  and 
the  wedding-day  was  set.  All  things  were  made  ready,  even 
to  the  setting  forth  of  the  marriage-feast ;  but  when  the  hour 
appointed  came,  it  did  not  bring  the  bridegroom. 

The  brain  whose  steady  strength  had  already  found  a  place 
among  the  best-trained  intellects  of  the  West — sustained  as  was 


THE  YOUNG  LAWYER.  123 

that  brain  by  a  bodily  frame  of  the  most  extraordinary  power 
and  by  a  will  of  iron — had  once  more  been  swept  into  tempo- 
rary ruin  as  by  a  hurricane  of  passionate  sorrow.  His  discovery 
was  that  all  the  heart  and  love  he  had,  or  ever  could  have,  lay 
buried  on  the  bank  of  the  Sangamon,  in  the  grave  of  Ann 
Kutledge. 

Lincoln  was  positively  demented — morbidly,  gloomily  insane. 
He  was  equally  unfit  for  marriage,  for  society,  for  business. 
Once  more  he  was  indebted  to  a  faithful  friend  for  the  care 
and  watching  he  stood  in  need  of.  He  never  had  one  wiser 
and  more  true  than  Mr.  J.  F.  Speed.  This  gentleman,  then  a 
resident  and  merchant  of  Springfield,  was  closing  up  his  busi- 
ness there,  and  early  in  January,  1841,  he  removed  to  a  new 
home  in  Kentucky,  carrying  Lincoln  with  him. 

Complete  cessation  of  mental  toil ;  severance  from  too  sug- 
gestive surroundings  of  places  and  persons;  with  the  firm, 
judicious  management  of  friends  in  whom  he  put  utter  confi- 
dence, gave  the  disordered  intellect  of  the  smitten  man  its 
best  opportunity  for  restoration  to  health.  Month  after  month 
went  by,  however,  before  it  was  deemed  safe  to  trust  him  back 
among  his  dangers.  Spring  and  summer  and  part  of  the  au- 
tumn passed  away,  and  with  them  a  whole  session  of  the  Legis- 
lature to  which  he  had  been  elected.  Then  he  returned.  But 
he  was  not  yet  altogether  himself.  He  kept  the  secret  of  the 
agony  which  had  overpowered  him,  but  his  mind  still  vacillated 
strangely  concerning  his  matrimonial  engagement.  Miss  Todd's 
friends  at  one  time  urged  her  to  give  him  up.  At  another 
they  seem  to  have  given  her  directly  opposite  counsel.  So  did 
the  friends  of  Lincoln  and  of  both  for  him.  The  two  met  and 
met  again,  but  there  is  no  record  that  at  any  time  there  was  a 
sign  of  a  change  of  purpose  in  Mary  Todd.  It  is  not  well  to 
speak  or  think  lightly  of  such  womanly  faith  and  constancy  as 
this.  She  loved  him,  trusted  him,  and  she  continually  drew 
him  to  her  more  and  more  nearly  and  irrevocably. 

On  his  return  to  Springfield,  Mr.  Lincoln  at  once  resumed 


124  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

his  law-practice  and  plunged  again  into  politics.  Habitually 
gloomy  as  his  face  had  grown  to  be,  he  did  not  wear  his  heart 
upon  his  sleeve.  He  took  his  part  with  energy  in  all  the  affairs 
of  the  day.  It  was  well,  too,  for  his  mental  health,  to  be 
brought  so  continually  in  contact  with  a  high-spirited  and  fun- 
loving  girl  like  Mary  Todd. 

In  the  course  of  the  following  year  a  merry  prank  of  hers 
ended  in  a  serious  scrape  for  him. 

Miss  Todd  was  mistress  of  a  somewhat  biting  style  of  satire, 
and  enjoyed  the  application  of  it  highly.  It  even  led  her  to 
the  occasional  contribution  of  political  lampoons  to  the  Spring- 
field newspapers.  As  a  matter  of  course,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  secret  of  the  authorship  of  these  "  Letters  from 
the  Lost  Townships,"  and  he  may  have  aided  in  the  prepara- 
tion of  one  or  more  of  them. 

Among  the  rising  politicians  of  Illinois,  at  that  time,  was  a 
young  Irish  gentleman,  James  Shields,  afterwards  to  be  famous 
as  a  soldier  and  political  leader,  but  whose  quick  temper  and 
sensitiveness  to  ridicule  rendered  him  a  dangerous  target  for 
the  mischievous  archery  of  Mary  Todd. 

Letter  after  letter  appeared  in  "  The  Sangamon  Journal," 
hitting  harder  and  harder,  until  Mr.  Shields  could  endure  no 
longer,  and  sent  a  friend  to  the  editor  demanding  the  author's 
name. 

The  editor,  placed  in  a  somewhat  awkward  position,  revealed 
a  half-truth  by  giving  to  the  messenger,  General  Whiteside, 
the  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

A  peppery  and  offensive  communication  was  at  once  written 
by  Mr.  Shields  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  eliciting  a  dignified  but  unsatis- 
factory reply,  and  a  challenge  to  fight  a  duel  speedily  followed. 
The  "  code  of  honor,"  as  it  was  the  absurd  fashion  to  describe 
the  system  of  fantastic  rules  regulating  that  form  of  deliberate 
murder,  was  then  in  full  force  in  the  "West.  Even  those  who 
perceived  its  insanity  and  hated  its  brutality  had  not  yet  learned 
to  repudiate  its  hellish  authority. 


THE  TO  UNO  LAWYER.  125 

It  seemed  therefore  necessary  for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  accept  the 
challenge.  Then  it  was  needful  that  the  friends  of  both  par- 
ties should  solemnly  ruffle  through  the  customary  correspon- 
dence, public  and  private.  There  were  the  usual  interviews, 
misunderstandings,  delicate  points  of  honor,  and  all  the  other 
doings  and  undoings  which  make  the  duelist  ridiculous.  At 
last  the  very  place  of  meeting  was  agreed  upon,  three  miles 
from  Alton,  Illinois,  but  on  the  Missouri  shore  of  the  Missis- 
sippi River.  The  weapons  selected  were  "  cavalry  broadswords 
of  the  largest  size,"  and  the  idea  of  being  hacked  at  with  such 
a  cleaver  by  a  man  of  Lincoln's  size  and  strength  could  hardly 
have  been  a  pleasant  one  for  Mr.  James  Shields. 

It  was  very  much  a  matter  of  course  that  the  seconds,  sur- 
geons, mutual  friends,  and  other  members  of  the  customary 
mob  of  assistants  at  such  an  affair  managed  to  patch  the  mat- 
ter up  in  time  to  prevent  the  use  of  the  broadswords,  and  after- 
wards the  truth  gradually  leaked  out  as  to  the  authorship  of 
the  "  Letters  from  the  Lost  Townships."  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not 
fight  the  duel,  and  the  larger  share  of  the  ridicule  attached  to 
Mr.  Shields,  but  it  remained  a  sore  subject  to  the  former  ever 
afterwards. 

The  arrangements  for  not  fighting  had  been  somewhat  elabo- 
rate, and  had  dragged  on  through  all  the  latter  part  of  Septem- 
ber and  into  October.  Eight  along  with  them,  and,  as  it 
seemed,  somewhat  hand-in-hand,  a  more  important  result  had 
been  preparing. 

On  the  4:th  of  November  Mr.  Lincoln  was  married  to  Mary 
Todd. 

The  young  couple  went  into  very  respectable  quarters,  board- 
ing at  the  Globe  Tavern,  where  they  were  compelled  to  pay 
the  then  good  price  of  four  dollars  a  week.  The  bridegroom 
was  finally  out  of  debt,  but  he  was  still  poor  and  had  never 
cultivated  the  faculty  of  making  money.  He  was  henceforth 
to  have  a  helpmeet  who  would  see  to  it  that  his  finances  were 
kept  in  better  order ;  but  even  Mrs.  Lincoln  perpetually  failed 


126  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

in  her  efforts  to  induce  him  to  make  a  proper  use  of  his  busi- 
ness advantages. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  had  now  recovered  health  and  tone  and 
the  calm  strength  which  it  never  again  lost.  He  was  as  hard 
a  student  as  ever,  both  of  books  and  men,  and  his  professional 
reputation  was  increasing.  He  was  once  more  the  lif  e  and 
soul  of  political  movements  and  party  organizations.  There 
was  no  danger  that  his  ambition  would  be  permitted  to  slum- 
ber, with  a  wife  at  his  elbow  who  fully  believed  in  his  capacity 
for  almost  any  earthly  achievement,  and  whose  own  political 
faculties  were  much  more  than  ordinary. 


MANHOOD.  127 


CHAPTER  XYIIL 

MANHOOD. 

An  Honest  Lawyer — A  Storm — The  Henry  Clay  Campaign — The  Old  Cabin 
— Partnerships — Coarse  and  Fine — Elected  Congressman — The  Mexi- 
can War — President  Making — The  Pro- Slavery  Formula — Southern 
Friendships. 

NEITHER  politics  nor  social  nor  domestic  interests  prevented 
Mr.  Lincoln  from  giving  careful  and  laborious  attention  to  Ms 
professional  duties.  On  the  3d  of  December,  1839,  he  was 
admitted  to  practice  in  the  Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States. 
His  presentation  of  his  first  case  in  that  court  stands  all  alone 
in  the  annals  of  the  law.  He  arose  and  addressed  the  bench 
as  follows: 

"  This  is  the  first  case  I  have  ever  had  in  this  court,  and  I 
have  therefore  examined  it  with  great  care.  As  the  Court  will 
perceive  by  looking  at  the  abstract  of  the  record,  the  only  ques- 
tion in  this  case  is  one  of  authority.  I  have  not  been  able  to 
find  any  authority  sustaining  my  side  of  the  case,  but  I  have 
found  several  cases  directly  in  point  on  the  other  side.  I  will 
now  give  these  cases  and  then  submit  the  case." 

The  courage,  candor,  simple  honor,  required  for  such  an 
utterance,  working  out  afterwards  in  all  he  said  or  did,  before 
judges  and  juries,  gave  him  a  power  with  them  which  was  pe- 
culiarly his  own.  Men  cannot  fail  to  be  influenced  by  the 
truth-seeking  argument  of  an  advocate  in  whose  integrity 
they  are  compelled  by  him  to  repose  unquestioning  confidence. 

There  were  cases  brought  to  him  which  he  could  not  and 
would  not  touch.  No  possible  fee  would  induce  him  to  be- 


128  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

come  the  instrument  of  injustice  under  cover  of  legal  form 
and  merely  technical  right. 

A  few  months  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  marriage  an  active  can- 
vass began  within  the  limits  of  the  "Whig  party  as  to  who 
should  be  its  candidate  for  Congressman  from  the  Sangamon 
district.  The  prospect  for  an  election  by  the  people  was  very 
good,  and  there  were  several  gentlemen  whose  friends  were 
hotly  urging  their  respective  claims.  Mr.  Lincoln  earnestly 
desired  the  nomination,  but  now,  for  the  first  time  in  his  poli- 
tical career,  he  found  himself  assailed  upon  purely  personal 
grounds.  It  would  hardly  have  answered  the  purposes  of  his 
rivals  to  attack  him  for  his  low  origin  before  a  community 
among  whom  such  an  assault  would  but  have  added  to  his  popu- 
larity. He  could,  on  the  other  hand,  be  accused  of  having  de- 
serted the  cause  of  the  common  people  by  marrying  an  "  aristo- 
cratic" wife.  All  good  men  who  believed  the  Bible  could  be 
told  that  he  was  a  deist  or  an  infidel.  At  the  same  time,  mem- 
bers of  the  mqre  numerous  sects  could  be  assured  that  he  was 
an  Episcopalian  or  a  Presbyterian,  with  equal  recklessness  of 
the  fact  that  he  was  neither.  Nothing  was  forgotten  or  neg- 
lected which  could  be  remembered  or  invented  against  him, 
and  he  was  compelled  to  bend  before  the  storm.  He  withdrew 
his  name  at  last  in  favor  of  Mr.  E.  D.  Baker,  and  that  gentle- 
man was  both  nominated  and  elected  to  the  Twenty-ninth 
Congress.  He  received,  throughout  the  canvass,  the  active 
support  of  the  defeated  aspirant. 

In  the  year  1844,  Mr.  Lincoln's  political  idol,  Henry  Clay, 
was  nominated  by  the  Whigs  for  the  Presidency,  and  Lincoln 
was  once  more  named  as  a  candidate  for  Presidential  Elector. 
He  threw  himself  into  the  campaign  with  all  his  energy,  and 
was  bitterly  disappointed  by  the  defeat  of  his  party  and  its 
great  representative.  He  made  many  speeches  in  Illinois,  but 
the  most  notable  part  of  his  work,  that  year,  came  to  him  in 
Indiana.  The  course  of  his  campaign  appointments  carried 
him  to  Gentryville  and  its  neighborhood.  He  made  three 


MANHOOD.  129 

speeches  within  a  few  miles,  one  of  them  within  two  miles,  of 
the  log-cabin  his  father  had  built  so  many  years  before.  The 
country  had  vastly  changed,  and  so  had  its  inhabitants,  but  not 
so  much  as  had  the  barefooted  boy  who  shivered  under  the 
"  pole-shelter"  that  first  winter. 

While  in  the  middle  of  his  speech  at  Gentry  ville,  he  espied 
an  old  boy-friend  and  neighbor,  Eat  Grigsby,  far  back  among 
his  hearers.  The  argument  suddenly  stopped  and  the  orator 
sprang  down  from  the  platform,  urging  his  way  through  the 
crowd  and  exclaiming,  "  There's  Nat !"  Not  till  after  a  good 
shake  of  the  hand  and  a  hearty  word  about  old  times  with  Nat 
did  the  gathered  voters  hear  the  rest  of  Lincoln's  plea  on  be- 
half of  Henry  Clay. 

Nat  and  nearly  all  the  rest  of  the  children  of  the  early  set- 
tlers of  the  Pigeon  Creek  forests  were  still,  except  for  the 
lapse  of  time,  living  at  the  earthy  level  upon  which  they  had 
been  born.  Their  original  advantages  had  been  at  least  us 
good,  and  in  many  instances  had  been  much  better,  than  those 
of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He,  however,  had  so  grown  and  so  de- 
parted from  that  level  of  human  life,  during  the  thirteen  years 
since  he  toiled  on  foot  from  the  woods  of  Indiana  to  the  prai- 
ries of  Illinois,  that  now  there  was  a  great  gulf  between  him 
and  them. 

Other  eyes  could  discern  the  abyss  of  separation  more  clearly 
than  could  those  of  "  the  orator  of  the  day."  He  insisted  on 
going  with  Nat  Grigsby  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  same  Mr.  Jones, 
in  Gentryville,  for  whom  he  had  performed  his  earliest  service 
as  clerk.  He  made  it  a  merry  time,  apparently,  and  he  met 
all  old  and  new  acquaintances  with  the  heartiest  cordiality. 
The  uses  of  fun  and  humor  as  a  mask  of  his  inner  man  were 
already  only  too  familiar  to  him.  It  was  well  for  him,  then 
and  afterwards,  that  he  possessed  so  excellent  a  shield. 

In  the  shadows  of  the  woods  near  Gentryville  there  were 
many  graves.  Among  them  were  those  of  Lincoln's  own 
mother  and  sister.  The  very  woods  themselves  were  a  sort  of 


130  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

burial-ground  for  the  strange,  hard,  unchildlike  childhood  out 
of  whose  hunger  and  thirst  and  nakedness  of  soul  and  body  he 
had  grown  to  his  present  stature.  He  could  not  look  upon  the 
log-cabin  of  his  earlier  days  without  understanding  that  some 
of  the  precious  treasures  of  human  life  had  been  denied  him. 
His  very  capacity  for  reading  and  so  for  leading  the  coarse  and 
sordid  men  and  women  around  him  told  of  a  side  of  his  being 
that  was  born  and  bred  with  him  and  that  never  could  or 
would  be  polished  away.  The  capacity  was  needful,  was  in- 
valuable, but  it  had  cost  something.  If  it  had  been  possible, 
and  if  he  had  chiseled  his  character  away  to  a  finer  model, 
more  in  accord  with  conventional  standards  of  human  per- 
fection, all  these  important  elements  of  American  life  would 
have  missed  finding  their  own  image  in  him.  Failing  that,  the 
people  would  have  refused  him  the  strong,  instinctive  con- 
fidence and  love  which  finally  flowed  to  him  and  enabled  him 
to  bind  the  hearts  of  a  nation  together  as  one  man,  and  in  one 
man,  in  the  hour  of  the  nation's  trial. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that,  now,  it  is  among  the  same  people, 
•educated  or  uneducated,  whether  nominally  high  or  low, 
rich  or  poor,  but  who  personally  knew  Lincoln  so  very  well  in 
those  old  days,  we  hear  the  one  faint  and  grumbling  negation 
of  his  greatness.  In  the  language  of  one  prairie-farmer,  un- 
consciously speaking  for  many :  "  Wai,  no.  Linkern  wasn't 
so  much  of  a  man.  I  knowed  him.  He  lived  out  this  away. 
I've  seen  him  a  heap  o'  times.  His  folks  was  torn-down  poor. 
Reckon  they  wouldn't  ha'  made  sech  a  fuss  about  him  ef  he 
hadn't  been  shot.  That  helped  him  powerful.  I  knowed  him." 

After  the  defeat  of  Henry  Clay  there  was  little  to  be  done 
in  politics  until  another  campaign,  and  the  life  Mr.  Lincoln 
led  was  necessarily  a  quiet  one.  He  followed  the  movements 
of  the  courts  from  place  to  place,  establishing  his  hard-earned 
reputation  more  and  more  firmly,  and  beginning  to  reap  a  har- 
vest of  fees  which  was  wealth  to  a  man  of  his  simple  tastes 
and  inexpensive  habits.  He  was  now  able  to  do  something  for 


MANHOOD.  131 

his  beloved  "  mother,"  for  his  shiftless,  improvident  father, 
and  for  quite  a  long  list  of  his  early  friends.  He  had,  how- 
ever, the  good  sense  not  to  go  too  far  in  this  direction,  and  he 
then  and  afterwards  refused  to  take  upon  his  own  shoulders 
the  burden  of  carrying  sundry  altogether  too  willing  depend- 
ents. Such  of  his  communications  to  these  and  others  as  have 
been  preserved  exhibit  a  praiseworthy  disposition  to  help  even 
chronic  indolence  to  help  itself,  but  not  to  go  much  beyond 
that  line.  It  was  a  matter  of  course  that  the  persons  aided, 
always  excepting  his  sound-minded  stepmother,  entertained 
wider  and  more  liberal  views  of  what  should  be  done  for  them 
by  a  man  upon  whom  they  held  the  strong  claim  that  they 
had  known  him  when  he  was  as  poor  as  themselves.  In  their 
minds,  justice  required  that  what  they  called  his  "  luck"  should 
be  divided  around  among  the  easy-going  mob  who  had  sat  so 
very  still  while  he  was  toiling  for  it. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  first  law-partnership,  with  John  T.  Stuart, 
which  began  in  1837,  was  dissolved  in  1841,  in  consequence  of 
Mr.  Stuart's  election  to  Congress.  His  second  partnership, 
with  Stephen  T.  Logan,  began  in  1841  and  lasted  until  1845. 
Shortly  afterwards  he  associated  with  him  Mr.  William  H. 
Herndon,  with  whom  his  relations  continued  to  the  very  end. 
These  were,  from  the  beginning,  more  near  than  those  of  mere 
business  partners.  The  greater  part  of  all  that  the  world 
knows  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  early  life  has  been  gathered  and  pre- 
served by  the  affectionate  diligence  of  his  devoted  friend.  It 
goes  almost  without  saying  that  Mr.  Herndon  stood  too  near 
the  man  he  loved  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  him  as  compared 
with  other  men,  or  to  correctly  discern  some  features  of  his 
character  which  required  to  be  studied  from  a  greater  distance. 

It  was  not  until  some  time  after  Mr.  Lincoln  began  to  "  ride 
the  circuit"  that  he  was  able  to  do  so  on  a  horse  or  in  a  buggy 
of  his  own;  but  whatever  borrowed  beast  or  vehicle  brought 
him  to  any  county-seat,  he  was  sure  to  be  welcomed  by  court 
and  bar  as  the  life  of  all  social  gatherings.  Among  his  prof es- 


132  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

eional  associates,  more  freely  and  completely  than  elsewhere, 
he  could  come  out  from  his  clouds  and  vapors  and  give  vent  to 
the  keen  but  quiet  humor  which  might  have  made  a  cheerful 
man  of  him  but  that  so  heavy  a  load  was  laid  upon  him  con- 
tinually. 

There  was  little  refinement  of  thought  or  speech  among 
those  Western  lawyers  or  their  clients.  There  had  been  none 
at  all  of  either  in  the  rough  schools  through  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  received  his  education.  He  had  his  finer  side ;  fine  even 
to  sensitiveness,  and  tender  to  an  extreme  capacity  for  suffer- 
ing ;  but  he  did  not  cast  the  pearls  of  this  before  the  swine  of 
a  miscellaneous  "  court-house  crowd."  As  they  were,  so  was 
he,  for  the  hour;  exhibiting  to  them,  in  careless  freedom  and 
good-fellowship,  only  such  stores  of  wisdom,  wit,  or  anecdote 
as  were  suited  to  the  average  taste,  morality,  and  brain  of  those 
who  listened.  It  was  a  way  in  life  by  no  means  peculiar  to 
him,  and  it  was  gradually  worn  from  him  in  the  sharp  and 
hard  attrition  of  his  later  days.  It  is  a  very  feeble-minded 
error  to  suppose  that  even  the  richest  vein  of  gold  is  naturally 
free  from  dross,  or  that  its  treasure  is  fitted  for  the  mint  before 
it  has  passed  through  the  crushing-mill,  the  furnace,  and  been 
subjected  to  the  subtle  and  searching  arts  of  the  refiner.  There 
was  much  dross  in  the  mind  and  in  the  speech  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  those  days  of  close  contact  with  the  crime,  mean- 
ness, fraud,  chicanery,  and  pollution  of  a  mixed  law-practice 
among  the  new  settlements  of  Illinois ;  but  there  was  very  little 
dross  of  any  kind  in  his  heart,  and  out  of  this  his  mouth  was 
sure  to  speak  more  and  more  as  time  went  on. 

In  the  year  1846  there  was  again  a  sharp  contest  over  the 
nomination  of  a  candidate  for  Congressman  by  the  Whig  party 
in  the  Sangamon  district.  It  was  speedily  reduced  to  a  com- 
petition between  the  sitting  member,  General  Hardin,  and  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and,  as  early  as  February  26th,  the  former  withdrew 
in  favor  of  the  new  aspirant.  The  regular  nomination  was 
made  in  the  following  May,  and  both  before  it  and  afterwards 


MANHOOD.  133 

the  personal  record  of  the  candidate  was  searched  for  all  its 
vulnerable  points.  His  supposed  religions  convictions  were 
assailed  all  the  more  bitterly  because  his  political  opponent  in 
the  campaign  was  Peter  Cartwright,  an  eccentric  but  popular 
preacher  of  the  Methodist  persuasion.  The  effort  to  make  the 
contest  one  between  saint  and  sinner  broke  down  altogether, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected  by  an  uncommonly  large  majority. 

He  had  thus  attained  a  long-sought  object  of  his  ambition, 
and  there  were  great  reasons,  not  in  any  man's  mind  then,  why 
a  term  of  service  in  Congress  was  especially  needful  to  him. 
The  honor  cost  him  a  high  price.  His  law-practice  must  suffer 
seriously,  in  spite  of  all  that  could  be  done  in  his  absence  by 
Mr.  Herndon.  Separation  from  home  was  inevitable,  for  his 
circumstances  did  not  permit  that  he  should  take  his  young 
and  growing  family  with  him  to  Washington.  Robert,  his 
first-born  child,  was  beginning  to  talk  and  run  around  the 
house;  but  his  second,  Willy,  was  still  a  babe  in  arms,  having 
been  born  on  the  10th  of  March  in  that  year. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  position  in  that  Congress,  the  Thirtieth,  as  the 
only  Whig  member  from  the  State  of  Illinois,  had  its  peculiar 
difficulties  and  responsibilities.  It  had  its  unpleasant  features 
as  well  as  its  honors.  It  gave  him  a  certain  exceptional  influ- 
ence and  weight  with  Whig  statesmen  from  other  parts  of  the 
country,  and  in  a  manner  vastly  widened  his  constituency  at 
home.  At  the  same  time  it  was  obvious  that  no  other  man 
could  be  more  sure  of  careful  watching  by  political  opponents. 
The  least  misstep  was  certain  to  be  made  the  most  of  against 
him.  He  understood  it  all,  and  then,  so  understanding,  he  de- 
liberately went  forward  to  make,  one  after  the  other,  the  pre- 
cise missteps  his  most  bitter  critics  would  have  asked  of  him. 
He  was  a  politician,  truly,  but  he  was  a  great  deal  more ;  and  it 
was  no  wonder,  at  the  end  of  the  Thirtieth  Congress,  that  he 
should  be  looked  upon  as  a  ruined  man,  in  whose  face  the  gates 
of  further  advancement  had  been  closed  by  his  own  reckless 
hand. 


134  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  House  was  organized  on  the  6th  of  December,  1847, 
Mr.  Lincoln  being  given  a  place  on  the  Committee  on  Post 
Offices  and  Post  Roads.  His  first  speech,  a  short  one,  was 
made  in  connection  with  the  business  of  that  committee,  and 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Herndon  that  he  found  it  as  easy  to  speak  in 
Congress  as  elsewhere. 

The  great  topics  of  the  hour  were  the  Mexican  "War  and  the 
extension  of  Slavery,  the  two  being  interwoven,  and  both  call- 
ing for  constant  discussion  in  many  forms. 

From  his  own  convictions  and  as  a  representative  of  the 
Whig  party,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  opposed  to  the  war  with  Mexico. 
As  early  as  the  22d  of  December  he  offered  a  preamble  and 
resolutions  setting  forth  his  views  of  the  varied  wrongs  in- 
volved in  the  course  pursued  by  the  administration  of  Presi- 
dent Polk  in  the  current  dispute  with  the  weak,  chaotic  re- 
public beyond  the  Rio  Grande.  The  war  was  soon  to  become 
popular  by  reason  of  the  military  glory  won  by  the  army,  and 
Mr.  Lincoln's  advocacy  of  the  weak  against  the  strong  lost  to 
him  and  to  his  party  the  greater  portion  of  his  political  strength 
in  Illinois.  He  made  a  somewhat  elaborate  speech  in  behalf 
of  his  resolutions  on  the  12th  of  January,  1848,  but  it  was  all 
too  late  to  stem  the  tide  of  war.  All  that  any  politician  could 
do,  in  or  out  of  Congress,  was  to  put  himself  in  such  a  position 
that  he  would  surely  be  swept  away  by  the  flood  of  popular 
passion.  Like  other  Whigs,  Mr.  Lincoln  voted  for  requisite 
supplies  for  the  army  in  the  field.  It  is  even  noteworthy  how 
close  is  the  analogy  between  his  position  with  reference  to  the 
Mexican  war  and  that  afterwards  held  by  many  conscientious 
Democrats  with  reference  to  the  war  for  the  Union.  It  goes 
far  to  explain  the  mutual  confidence  which  existed,  at  the  lat- 
ter period,  between  him  and  them ;  and  the  country  was  the 
gainer. 

While  the  war  lasted  it  was  exceedingly  popular,  but  the 
sure  reaction  from  its  fierce  excitement  temporarily  crippled 
the  party  which  was  responsible  for  it.  Nevertheless,  the 


MANHOOD.  135 

political  chief 8  who  had  most  actively  opposed  it  were  not  at 
once  available  candidates  for  political  honors.  Mr.  Lincoln 
saw  clearly  that  not  himself  only  but  such  men  as  Henry  Clay, 
Daniel  Webster,  and  all  the  old-time  Whig  giants  must  be  set 
aside.  That  men  accustomed  to  control  should  fail  to  appre- 
ciate a  necessity  so  disagreeable  was  every  way  natural,  and 
their  friends  with  keener  perceptions  were  compelled  to  bestir 
themselves  in  time.  It  was  needful  that  a  Whig  Presidential 
candidate  should  be  fixed  upon  in  advance  of  the  Whig  Na- 
tional Convention  if  one  was  to  be  offered  with  any  prospect 
of  an  election  by  the  people.  There  did  not  really  seem  to  be 
more  than  one  man  who  met  the  requirements  of  the  political 
situation.  General  Zachary  Taylor  was  the  hero  of  some  of 
the  hardest-fought  battles  of  the  war,  and  he  probably  pos- 
sessed as  much  statesmanship  as  falls  to  the  lot  of  most  good 
military  commanders.  A  respectable  lawyer  from  Western 
New  York,  Millard  Fillmore,  was  given  the  second  place  on 
the  ticket.  Nobody  knew  enough  about  either  of  these  gentle- 
men to  say  a  word  against  them,  and  Taylor's  war-record  was 
full  of  political  campaign  material.  Mr.  Lincoln  took  an  active 
part  in  arranging  its  business  beforehand  for  the  National  Con- 
vention. He  attended  its  formal  meeting  at  Philadelphia  on 
the  1st  of  June,  assisted  in  placing  the  candidates  upon  the 
platform  of  principles  constructed  for  them,  and  then  returned 
to  Washington  to  finish  his  work  as  a  member  of  Congress. 

On  the  20th  of  June  he  delivered  in  the  House  a  speech 
upon  his  favorite  subject  of  internal  improvement.  On  the 
27th  of  July  following  he  again  spoke  in  an  argument  which 
embraced  the  entire  field  of  the  Presidential  election  and  the 
leading  political  issues  of  the  day.  The  most  interesting  fea- 
ture of  this  speech  is  the  plainness  with  which  it  sets  forth 
Mr.  Lincoln's  unalterable  opposition  to  slavery.  He  could  not 
and  did  not  offensively  formulate  it  then  and  there.  If  his 
opinions  were  at  all  in  advance  of  those  held  at  the  time  by  a 
large  part  of  the  Whig  party  in  the  Northern  States,  a  wise 


136  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

care  for  the  results  of  the  pending  election  forbade  their  utter- 
ance. He  was  cautious,  but  proslaver  j  men  were  by  no  means 
either  blinded  or  satisfied  by  such  moderation  in  him  or  in 
others.  They  well  understood  that  all  opposition  to  the  "  ex- 
tension of  slavery"  had  for  its  source  and  foundation  a  hatred 
of  human  bondage  for  its  own  sake.  It  was  easy  for  them,  in 
their  heated  imaginations,  to  transfer  that  rooted  hatred  to 
themselves  and  to  assume  that  it  could  not  but  be  personal. 
They  promptly  adjusted  themselves  to  that  interpretation  of 
all  such  utterances  as  those  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  They  were  men 
whose  habits  of  life,  of  thought  and  action,  forbade  them  to 
flinch  from  any  issue  presented.  They  were  both  able  and 
courageous,  and  they  ruled  the  country  thereafter  for  twenty 
years  by  the  mere  presentation  of  the  bold  formula :  "  If  you 
hate  slavery,  you  hate  us.  If  you  desire  to  kill  it,  your  real 
purpose  is  to  murder  the  people  of  the  South." 

Congress  adjourned  on  the  14th  of  August,  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
went  to  New  England  on  a  brief  tour  of  political  speech-mak- 
ing. This  was  his  first  opportunity  for  acquiring  any  personal 
acquaintance  with  modes  of  life  in  the  Eastern  States.  Except 
for  what  study  he  had  made  of  Yankee  settlers  in  the  West,  he 
was  entirely  ignorant  concerning  a  population  which  was  yet 
to  give  him  its  very  heart.  He  was,  however,  a  student  accus- 
tomed to  learn  rapidly  the  contents  of  the  human  pages  brought 
before  him.  He  could  not  possibly  fail  to  profit  by  such  an 
experience  of  contact  and  observation. 

The  second  session  of  the  Thirtieth  Congress  did  little  or 
nothing  for  the  reputation  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  voted  with  his 
party,  now  in  brief  control  of  the  House.  He  even  offered  a 
bill  for  compensated  emancipation  of  slaves  held  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  but  it  died  the  natural  death  of  all  such  proposi- 
tions in  those  days.  Somewhat  curiously,  he  made  more  and 
more  lasting  new  friendships  among  Southern  representative 
men  than  Northern.  It  was  as  if  some  subtle  instinct  bade 
him  seek  and  study  them,  telling  him  the  importance  of  his 


MANHOOD.  137 

acquiring  a  knowledge  of  them  and  an  understanding  through 
them  of  the  people  who  sent  them  to  Congress.  Some  of  these 
friendships,  as  that  with  Mr.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  came  to  the 
surface  as  political  factors  and  powers  in  subsequent  emergen- 
cies. His  correspondence  with  Mr.  Herndon  during  all  this 
period  exhibits  his  undiminished  interest  in  his  home  affairs. 
It  also  shows  that  he  was  subject  to  all  the  minor  annoyances 
and  perplexities  of  a  member  of  Congress,  including  the  per- 
tinacities of  office-seekers  and  the  carping  criticism  of  personal 
friends.  There  was  really  no  reason  why  he  should  be  anxious 
for  a  re-election,  and  there  were  many  good  reasons  why  he 
should  not  openly  seek  for  one.  Of  these,  perhaps  the  best,  in 
his  judgment,  was  the  absolute  certainty  of  defeat  at  the  polls 
if  he  should  be  nominated. 


138  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEE  XIX. 

THE   COMING  CONFLICT. 

Office  Refused — The  Missouri  Compromise — A  Sure  Prophecy — Inner  Life 
— Ripening — Death  of  Tom  Lincoln — A  Written  Confession  of  Faith. 

MR.  LINCOLN  would  willingly  have  continued  in  Congress 
if  such  a  thing  had  been  politically  possible ;  but  it  was  not. 
Among  other  obstacles  appears  to  have  been  some  sort  of  an 
informal  understanding  between  him  and  other  Whig  leaders 
of  central  Illinois  aiming  at  a  rotation  among  them  of  the 
honor  of  representing  the  Sangamon  district.  The  nomination 
fell  to  Lincoln's  friend,  Judge  Logan,  but  he  received  it  only 
to  meet  the  sure  defeat  prepared  for  him  by  the  anti-war  and 
antislavery  record  of  his  predecessor.  The  latter  at  this  junc- 
ture of  his  affairs  made  an  effort  to  obtain  from  the  new  Whig 
administration  the  appointment  of  Commissioner  of  the  Gen- 
eral Land  Office  at  Washington.  It  was  probably  at  that  time 
the  one  public  employment  which  would  have  offered  him  op- 
portunities for  furthering  his  internal-improvement  schemes. 
The  national  landed  property,  always  large,  had  been  greatly 
increased  by  the  results  of  the  war  with  Mexico.  It  was  im- 
possible that  Lincoln's  mind  should  not  turn  with  ideas  and 
projects  relating  to  the  future  use  and  occupation  of  areas  so 
vast  and  so  full  of  all  the  prophecies  of  empire. 

The  coveted  post  was  given  to  another  citizen  of  Illinois, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  offered  in  its  stead  the  governorship  of 
Oregon  Territory.  He  was  urged  by  his  friends  to  take  the 
appointment,  on  the  ground  that  Oregon  would  soon  be  a 
State  and  would  thus  send  him  to  the  United  States  Senate. 
It  was  a  tempting  bait,  but  all  the  reply  he  made  was  that  he 


THE  COMING   CONFLICT.  139 

would  accept  if  Mrs.  Lincoln  approved.  The  question  was 
duly  submitted  to  her,  and'  her  refusal  was  equally  absolute 
and  prompt.  She  would  not  let  her  husband  bury  himself 
again  in  the  wilds  of  another  new  country,  and  he  acted  upon 
her  wifely  advice,  returning  with  all  his  accustomed  vigor  to 
his  sadly  run-down  and  neglected  legal  practice. 

The  Eighth  Judicial  District  was  territorially  large,  includ- 
ing fourteen  prairie  counties.  To  each  of  the  several  county- 
seats  Mr.  Lincoln  traveled  twice  in  each  year.  Each  circuit 
required  nearly  three  months,  and  not  much  more  than  half  of 
any  year  could  be  spent  quietly  at  home  by  an  active  prac- 
titioner. In  the  intervals  of  these  unavoidable  absences 
Lincoln's  home  grew  very  dear  to  him.  His  habits  were 
simple  and  domestic  to  the  last  degree,  and  his  fondness  for 
his  children  was  one  of  his  most  deeply  marked  characteristics. 
His  wife  was  utterly  devoted  to  him.  His  widening  circle  of 
friends  grew  more  and  more  attached  and  trusting,  and  his 
affairs  were  eminently  prosperous.  His  position  was  hardly 
second  to  that  of  any  other  man  in  the  State,  and  it  seemed 
that  he  had  already  won  every  success  in  life  which  could  rea- 
sonably be  aspired  to  by  the  son  of  an  Indiana  settler,  a  "  poor 
white"  from  Kentucky. 

He  himself  was  anything  but  satisfied.  He  was  still  aspir- 
ing, studying,  preparing,  growing.  He  carried  with  him  upon 
the  circuit  other  books  than  those  which  treated  of  the  law. 
Copies  of  Shakespeare,  historical  works,  mathematical  school 
text-books,  were  his  frequent  companions.  He  was  still  pur- 
suing in  his  ripe  manhood  the  tireless  process  of  education 
which  he  had  begun  with  a  piece  of  charcoal  and  a  wooden 
fire-shovel. 

He  was  much  sought  after  as  a  "  counsel  for  the  defendant" 
in  criminal  cases,  although  his  noted  power  over  a  jury  passed 
away  from  him  at  once  if  he  himself  believed  his  client  to  be 
guilty.  In  one  such  case  that  is  recorded  he  remarked  to  his 
associate  counsel : 


140  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  If  you  can  say  anything  for  the  man,  do  it.  I  can't.  If 
I  attempt,  the  jury  will  see  that  I  think  he  is  guilty  and  con- 
vict him  of  course." 

The  other  lawyers  followed  their  chiefs  example ;  the  case 
was  submitted  without  argument ;  and  the  jury,  unassisted  by 
any  "  confession"  from  Abraham  Lincoln,  failed  to  agree  upon 
a  verdict. 

In  a  similar  case,  years  later,  in  Champaign  County,  a  man 
was  on  trial  for  murder.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  employed  to  defend 
him,  assisted  by  Leonard  Swett.  The  prosecution  was  con- 
ducted by  Ward  H.  Lamon  and  Judge  Ficklin ;  and  when  they 
had  done  their  duty,  the  prisoner's  leading  counsel  was  con- 
vinced of  his  guilt. 

"  Swett,"  said  he,  "  the  man  is  guilty.  You  defend  him.  I 
can't." 

Mr.  Swett,  only  less  effective  before  a  jury  than  Mr.  Lincoln 
himself,  made  the  remaining  fight  so  well  that  his  client  was 
acquitted ;  but  his  associate  refused  to  take  any  part  of  the  fee 
that  was  paid  for  the  work  he  had  refused  to  do. 

There  are  many  anecdotes  told  of  Lincoln's  professional 
readiness,  wit,  learning,  capacity,  eloquence,  but  few  afford 
any  better  knowledge  of  the  real  life  of  the  man.  He  was  in- 
wardly advancing  to  a  higher  stature  of  mind  and  soul  than 
was  required  for  the  winning  of  a  succession  of  court-room 
victories  over  the  arts  of  opposing  counsel  and  over  the  minds 
of  petty  juries.  Kot  as  a  mere  lawyer,  of  what  rank  and 
power  soever,  was  his  name  to  go  down  to  future  generations. 
Still  it  is  well  to  be  assured  that  in  these  duties  as  in  all  others 
he  was  notably  capable  and  faithful. 

Questions  of  national  importance  were  now  beginning  to 
stir  more  and  more  powerfully  in  his  conscience  and  in  his 
heart  as  the  fruits  of  his  Congressional  experience  slowly 
ripened.  Long  before  going  to  Washington,  he  had  been  sent 
to  look  with  open  eyes  upon  some  aspects  of  the  slave-life  of 
the  Southern  States.  While  in  Congress  he  had  studied  and 


THE  COMING   CONFLICT.  141 

understood  the  men  who  excused,  defended,  or  glorified  the 
laws  and  institutions  by  which  that  life  was  created  and  con- 
tinued in  existence. 

It  was  not  difficult  for  any  thoughtful  man  to  comprehend, 
in  part  at  least,  the  purposes  and  plans  of  the  advocates  of 
slavery,  for  they  were  even  brutally  frank  in  many  of  their 
public  declarations.  They  had  to  the  uttermost  the  courage 
of  their  convictions,  and  they  shrank  from  no  part  or  issue  or 
consequence  of  the  work  to  which  they  had  set  themselves. 
Mr.  Lincoln  understood  fully  now  their  courage,  their  activity, 
their  great  intellectual  ability.  He  saw  with  equal  clearness 
the  sluggish  cowardice  of  all  the  opposition  to  their  will,  which 
had  as  yet  a  position  to  make  itself  effective.  He  knew  men, 
and  had  analyzed  the  processes  through  which  their  slow 
thoughts  and  feelings  are  developed  into  purposes  and  pass  on 
into  express  action.  He  was  watching  these  processes  with 
intense  interest.  In  the  year  1850,  in  a  conversation  with  his 
friend  and  former  law-partner,  Mr.  Stuart,  he  said : 

"  The  time  will  come  when  we  must  all  be  Democrats  or 
Abolitionists.  When  that  time  comes  my  mind  is  made  up. 
The  slavery  question  can't  be  compromised." 

"  So  is  my  mind  made  up,"  replied  Mr.  Stuart ;  but  it  was 
that  he  would  be  no  Abolitionist. 

The  very  thing  Mr.  Lincoln  said  could  not  be  done  was  now 
attempted.  Shallow  thinkers  said  it  had  been  done,  by  the  so- 
called  "Compromise  Measures  of  1850,"  whether  regarded 
merely  as  laws  or  as  a  species  of  social  contract.  These,  it  may 
be  well  to  recall,  admitted  Missouri  without  restriction  as  to 
Slavery,  and  at  the  same  time  prohibited  Slavery  forever  in  the 
new  territory  west  of  Missouri  and  north  of  the  latitude  36°  30' 
— the  southern  boundary  line  of  that  State.  This  "  Missouri 
Compromise"  did  indeed  arise  to  the  dignity  of  a  hollow  and 
fraudulent  political  truce.  So  long  as  the  fetters  it  sought  to 
impose  retained  their  fictitious'  binding  power  there  was  no 
fitting  place  in  politics  for  men  like  Abraham  Lincoln.  The 


142  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

condition  of  his  mind  with  reference  to  all  this  matter  is 
admirably  set  forth  by  Mr.  Herndon : 

"  Mr.  Lincoln  and  I  were  going  to  Petersburg,  in  1850,  I 
think.  The  political  world  was  dead:  the  compromises  of 
1850  seemed  to  have  settled  the  negro's  fate.  Things  were 
stagnant,  and  all  hope  for  progress  in  the  line  of  freedom 
seemed  to  be  crushed  out.  Lincoln  was  speculating  with  me 
about  the  deadness  of  things  and  the  despair  which  arose  out 
of  it,  and  deeply  regretting  that  his  human  strength  and  power 
were  limited  by  his  nature  to  rouse  and  stir  up  the  world.  He 
said  gloomily,  despairingly,  sadly :  '  How  hard,  oh,  how  hard 
it  is  to  die  and  leave  one's  country  no  better  than  if  one  had 
never  lived  for  it !  The  world  is  dead  to  hope,  deaf  to  its  own 
death-struggle,  made  known  by  a  universal  cry.  What  is  to 
be  done  ?  Is  anything  to  be  done  ?  Who  can  do  anything  ? 
And  how  is  it  to  be  done?  Did  you  ever  think  of  these 
things?'" 

It  was  a  grand  utterance ;  and  the  world  can  understand  it 
now,  and  can  also  understand  by  help  of  it  what  forces  were  at 
work  behind  the  sad  face  of  the  man  who  was  yet  to  answer 
effectively  the  fierce  questionings  of  his  own  despairing  cry. 
The  world  of  1850  was  not  the  world  of  to-day.  There  have 
been  vast  convulsions  and  wonderful  changes  in  every  part  of 
it  since  then,  and  every  change  and  every  convulsion  which 
has  taken  place  began  in  the  hearts  of  men  who  had  in  some 
measure  received,  like  Lincoln,  the  priceless  gifts  of  thinking 
and  seeing  and  suffering. 

Men  who  heard  him  at  times — men  like  Herndon,  who  was 
a  sincere  Abolitionist — could  and  did  wonder  why  the  man 
who  felt  so  deeply  and  spoke  so  strongly  did  not  at  once  break 
out  into  some  species  of  agitation.  Other  men  were  so  doing 
here  and  there,  and  were  bravely  performing  the  work  of 
pioneers  in  the  cause  of  freedom.  Lincoln  also  was  doing  the 
work  allotted  him,  and  his  zealous  friends  were  unable  to  see 
that  his  time  for  something  different  had  not  yet  come.  He 


THE  COMING   CONFLICT.  143 

understood,  rather  than  saw,  the  unadvisability  of  present  ac- 
tivity on  his  part.  It  was  nothing  to  him  that  other  men,  such 
as  in  after-time  mistook  themselves  and  their  frantic  outcries 
for  causes  instead  of  effervescent  effects,  were  all  the  while 
hurling  anathemas  at  any  who  might  dare  await  the  coming 
fullness  of  time.  It  had  not  come,  and  he  would  bravely  wait. 

The  great  mass  of  American  citizens  went  somewhat  stolidly 
on  with  their  plowing  and  planting,  their  merchandise,  their 
"politics, — such  as  they  thought  they  could  understand, — and 
their  religions,  such  as  they  had. 

The  fullness  of  time  came,  and  with  it  the  man  who  had 
ripened  with  it  for  the  work  of  the  great  harvest ;  but  even 
now,  after  the  work  is  done  and  he  has  passed  on  out  of  the 
field,  there  still  remain  those  who  look  back  to  the  year  1850, 
and  even  later,  and  try  to  persuade  themselves  and  others: 
"  At  that  time  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  was  not  made  up.  He  was 
no  further  advanced  then  than  we  ourselves  were." 

By  others  somewhat  this  sort  of  comment  has  been  freely 
made :  "  He  and  the  other  politicians  were  ready  enough  to  reap 
the  harvest  we  had  sown  and  tilled  for  them.  The  new  politi- 
cal world  was  created  by  us  and  we  put  into  it  the  men,  like 
Lincoln,  whom  we  manufactured  out  of  the  dust  of  the  earth. 
"We  blew  into  them  all  the  life  they  ever  had." 

Mr.  Lincoln's  determination  to  abstain  from  current  politics 
was  so  firm,  that  when  in  that  very  year  the  nomination  for 
Congress  was  again  offered  him,  he  positively  and  publicly  de- 
clined it.  It  is  very  possible  that  he  could  have  been  elected, 
as  all  personal  opposition  to  him  had  ebbed  away.  But  there 
was  little  to  be  then  accomplished  at  Washington  which  could 
not  just  as  well  be  done  by  other  men.  Moreover,  the  sacri- 
fice of  professional  and  domestic  interests  and  ties  would  then 
have  been  greater  than  before. 

His  father's  health  began  to  fail  towards  the  close  of  1850, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  took  care  that  his  last  days  should  be  provided 
for  in  every  needful  way.  It  was  also  just  before  the  birth  of 


144  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

little  "  Tad,"  and  there  were  other  reasons  which  forbade  a 
prolonged  absence  from  Springfield. 

As  for  Thomas  Lincoln,  it  is  pleasant  to  know  how  tenderly 
and  kindly  the  poor  old  shiftless  Kentucky  ne'er-do-well  was 
cared  for  upon  his  death-bed  by  his  faithful  son.  Mr.  Lincoln 
wrote  to  his  step-brother,  John  Johnston,  a  letter  which  closes 
with  the  following  sentences : 

"  I  sincerely  hope  father  may  yet  recover  his  health ;  but  at 
all  events  tell  him  to  remember  to  call  upon  and  confide  in  our 
great  and  good  and  merciful  Maker,  who  will  not  turn  away 
from  him  in  any  extremity.  He  notes  the  fall  of  the  sparrow 
and  numbers  the  hairs  of  our  heads ;  and  He  will  not  forget 
the  dying  man  who  puts  his  trust  in  Him.  Say  to  him  that, 
if  we  could  meet  now,  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  would  not  be 
more  painful  than  pleasant ;  but  that  if  it  be  his  lot  to  go  now, 
he  will  soon  have  a  joyful  meeting  with  loved  ones  gone  be- 
fore, and  where  the  rest  of  us,  through  the  mercy  of  God,  hope 
ere  long  to  join  them." 

These  utterances,  too,  may  well  stand  as  an  answer  to  those 
who  tried  to  make  the  thoughtful  man  responsible  for  the  raw 
infidelity  of  the  thinking  youth.  This  faith  in  the  fatherhood 
of  God,  and  his  later  manifestations  of  positive  belief  in  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  are  not  far  from  obedience  to  the  great 
commandments  on  which,  said  Jesus,  "hang  all  the  law  and 
the  prophets." 

After  his  father's  death,  as  before,  Mr.  Lincoln  continued 
his  kind  offices  to  his  step-mother,  and  to  other  members  of 
the  family,  although  some  of  the  latter  took  a  course  in  life 
which  reflected  small  credit  upon  her  or  him.  He  probably 
did  as  much  for  all  of  them  as  was  in  any  manner  well  or 
worth  while. 


From  Photograph  taken  immediately  after  Nomination,  1860. 


A  GREAT  AWAKENING,  145 


CHAPTEK  XX. 

A   GREAT   AWAKENING. 

Colonization — The  Kansas-Nebraska  Act — The  Barriers  Broken  Down — 
Lincoln's  First  Great  Speech — Stephen  A.  Douglas — Growth  of  a  New 
Party — Discovering  a  Leader — An  Oratorical  Match. 

IN  July,  1852,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  selected  by  the  citizens  of 
Springfield  to  deliver  a  funeral  oration  upon  Henry  Clay.  He- 
performed  the  public  duty  allotted  him,  but  with  an  absence 
of  enthusiasm  for  his  old  political  idol  which  occasioned  re- 
mark. It  need  not  have  surprised  any  who  knew  him  welL 
He  had  that  upon  his  mind  which  forbade  his  rising  to  any  un- 
usual height  of  eloquence  in  dealing  with  the  memory  of  a 
statesman  whose  sun  had  set  behind  the  clouds  of  "  compro- 
mise" of  the  slavery  question.  The  only  noteworthy  feature 
of  the  address  is  its  bewildered  agreement  with  Mr.  Clay's 
idea  of  the  colonization  of  the  black  people  in  Africa  as  a  pos- 
sible remedy  for  existing  evils.  Clearly  foreseeing  the  awful 
perils  into  which  the  country  was  drifting ;  discovering  no 
possibility  of  emancipation  upon  the  soil  of  the  United  States ; 
regarding  the  continued  presence  of  such  a  population  as  a 
danger  to  the  future  welfare  of  the  whites,  both  of  the  North 
and  South — all  the  threatening  images  with  which  his  inner 
thought  was  turning  goaded  him  on  in  a  search  which  seemed 
hopeless.  In  such  a  state  of  mind,  the  vain  chimera  of  a 
wholesale  transportation  of  the  apparent  cause  of  the  coming 
strife  and  misery  to  other  lands  took  hold  of  him  with  a 
power  which  would  have  been  impossible  had  any  alternative 
proposition  been  presented.  It  clung  to  him  for  years  with  a 
pertinacity  which  is  not  at  all  wonderful,  but  which  is  not  easy 


146  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  explanation  to  minds  which  have  not  had  the  same  problems 
to  deal  with. 

During  the  same  year  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  speech  at  Spring- 
field, in  commentary  upon  one  delivered  by  Stephen  A.  Doug- 
las at  Kichmond,  Virginia.  Like  other  ephemeral  utterances 
it  has  little  interest  now. 

The  minor  features  of  the  slow  movement  of  national  poli- 
tics in  the  years  preceding  the  great  collision  have  passed  out 
of  sight.  It  was  regarded  by  some,  at  that  time,  as  an  act  of  pre- 
sumption for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  assume  such  an  attitude  of  equal- 
ity with  "the  little  giant  of  Illinois." 

To  Mr.  Douglas,  however,  the  whole  country  was  soon  to  be 
indebted  for  an  act  of  servility  to  the  slave-power  which  set 
free  the  forces  for  a  time  bound  down  by  the  compromises  of 
1850.  The  bill  afterwards  known  in  history  as  "  The  Kansas- 
Nebraska  Act,"  in  its  complete  form,  was  reported  to  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States  on  the  23d  of  January,  1854,  by  Mr. 
.Douglas,  as  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Territories. 

The  Act  provided  for  the  creation  of  the  Territories  of  Kan- 
sas and  Nebraska  out  of  the  immense  area  then  bearing  the 
latter  name.  It  removed  the  safeguards  and  ignored  the 
solemn  compact  provided  by  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and 
left  the  people  of  these  or  any  other  Territories,  or  a  tempo- 
rary majority  vote  of  them,  empowered  to  admit  or  reject 
human  slavery,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  in  which  there  was  then  no  specific  barrier.  In  no  other 
way  could  the  impending  peril  have  been  placed  before  the 
public  in  a  shape  so  easily  understood.  All  mere  theories  were 
out  of  date  in  an  instant,  when  the  propagandists  of  bondage 
said  to  the  nation :  "  Here  are  two  new  States  to  be  organized. 
They  must  be  Slave-States.  We  have  broken  down  the  fence 
agreed  upon  between  you  and  us.  You  shall  not  put  up  any 
more." 

The  people  as  a  whole  were  slow  in  dividing  upon  the  new 
issue  so  presented.  The  Democratic  party,  North  and  South, 


A   GREAT  AWAKENING.  147 

was  wonderfully  vigorous  and  in  perfect  discipline,  and  it  held 
the  Federal  government,  with  all  its  machinery  of  administra- 
tion, in  a  grasp  of  iron.  The  Whig  party  was  in  process  of 
disintegration ;  dying  because  it  had  nothing  to  live  for. 
There  was  no  existing  political  organization  capable  of  taking 
up  the  challenge  of  the  South.  The  chiefs  of  the  latter  were 
utterly  astounded  by  the  roar  of  surprise,  fury,  dismay,  of 
helpless,  aimless,  moblike  wrath  which  swept  the  North  like  a 
tidal  wave  from  the  Atlantic  westward. 

Mr.  Douglas  was  as  much  astonished  as  were  his  Southern 
colleagues.  He  finished  his  Senatorial  work  in  Washington, 
and  hurried  to  Illinois  to  try  and  persuade  the  people  that  his 
bill  did  not  mean  what  they  all  said  it  did.  At  Chicago  the 
angry  multitude  refused  to  listen  to  him,  and  he  went  on  to 
Springfield. 

The  State  Fair  was  held  in  that  city  in  October,  drawing  to- 
gether a  vast  throng  from  all  parts  of  the  State,  thoroughly 
representing  its  best  population ;  and  before  that  assembly  the 
Senator  pleaded  in  his  own  defense. 

There  was  one  man  in  Springfield  to  whom  the  Kansas-Ne- 
braska bill,  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  the  re-open- 
ing of  the  slavery  question,  had  come  as  a  new  lease  of  life. 
As  by  one  voice  the  duty  of  answering  Douglas  was  assigned 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  he  may  be  truly  said  to  have  made  his 
first  great  political  speech  that  day.  All  the  smothered  fire  of 
his  brooding  days  and  nights  and  years  burst  forth  in  a  power 
and  with  an  eloquence  which  even  those  who  knew  him  best 
had  not  so  much  as  hoped  for. 

There  was  no  report  made  of  that  speech.  Not  a  sentence 
of  it  had  been  reduced  to  writing  beforehand.  He  spoke  all 
that  was  in  his  heart  to  speak,  and  when  he  sat  down  there 
had  been  a  new  party  born  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  and  he  was 
its  father,  its  head,  its  unquestioned  and  unquestionable  repre- 
sentative and  leader. 

Mr.  Douglas  briefly  and  vainly  attempted  a  reply,  ending  b,y 


148  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

a  promise  of  another  speech  in  the  evening ;  but  his  defeat  had 
been  altogether  too  complete.  He  made  no  second  appearance 
before  the  assembly  which  had  listened  while  Mr.  Lincoln  tore 
his.  fallacies  to  shreds  and  held  his  personal  political  record  up 
to  their  scorn  and  ridicule.  The  evening  was  occupied  instead 
by  a  number  of  the  best  orators  in  the  State,  both  Whigs  and 
Democrats,  enforcing  the  great  lesson  of  the  day  and  carrying 
forward  the  work  which  Lincoln  had  so  well  begun. 

The  elements  for  the  formation  of  a  new  party  were  abun- 
dant in  every  Northern  State,  and  they  were  aggregating  ra- 
pidly, but  they  were  yet  confused,  unorganized,  chaotic.  There 
was  great  intensity  of  feeling  among  all  the  varied  and  discon- 
nected constituencies,  but  no  formulated  expression  had  been 
agreed  upon.  So  far  as  men  were  able  to  typify  the  ideas  and 
purposes  to  which  they  were  opposed,  these  were  temporarily 
embodied  in  Stephen  A.  Douglas  rather  than  in  any  Southern 
leader.  It  was  a  distinction  of  which  he  afterwards  laboriously 
and  painfully  divested  himself.  But  he  wore  it  long  enough 
to  serve  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  given  him. 

A  part  of  this  had  been  already  well  served.  Publicly,  be- 
fore a  vast  jury  of  his  fellow-citizens,  as  the  champion  of  his 
cause  he  had  met  and  been  vanquished  by  the  man  who  thence- 
forward was  to  express  in  his  own  voice  and  personality,  and 
at  last  to  officially  represent  and  direct,  the  national  will  and 
soul,  aroused  by  proslavery  aggression.  The  service  was  not 
fully  performed  that  day,  for  afterwards  Mr.  Douglas  was  to 
act  as  a  pointing  hand,  concentrating  the  eyes  of  men  upon 
Mr.  Lincoln,  so  that  they  might  know  their  leader  and  form 
column  behind  him  as  he  went  forward. 

Much  good  work  for  freedom  had  already  been  done  upon 
the  floors  of  Congress,  in  House  and  Senate ;  much  in  the  press 
and  in  the  pulpit ;  more  in  talks  by  firesides  and  in  neighbor- 
hood gatherings.  The  fire  passed  swiftly  from  man  to  man. 
Had  it  not  been  so  there  would  have  been  no  party  to  organize. 
It  is,  nevertheless,  a  matter  of  historical  record  that  the  exist- 


A   GREAT  AWAKENING.  149 

ence  of  the  Republican  party,  unnamed  but  living,  dates  from 
the  first  collision  at  Springfield  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas  with  the 
man  who  for  forty-seven  years  of  toilsome  development  had 
unwittingly  prepared  himself  for  that  hour  and  for  the  long 
struggle  which  was  to  follow. 

The  other  orators  of  the  day,  the  crowd  that  sympathized, 
admired,  applauded,  saw  little  more  than  the  fact  that  "  Old 
Abe  has  made  a  splendid  speech.  We  did  not  know  it  was  in 
him." 

Some  of  them  also  perceived  the  evident  fact  that  whenever 
Mr.  Douglas  or  any  other  champion  of  the  cause  he  repre- 
sented should  require  to  be  met  again,  there  could  be  no  doubt 
as  to  the  popular  choice  of  a  man  to  meet  him.  Not  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  a  great  man  or  the  equal  of  Mr.  Douglas.  He 
was  too  near  a  neighbor  for  that,  and  not  known  much  outside 
of  the  State.  Nothing  great  about  him.  They  knew  him. 
Had  heard  him  tell  stories.  Still,  he  was  a  sort  of  growing 
man,  and  he  could  make  a  right  down  good  speech.  A  man 
with  a  sadly  defective  education. 

There  was  a  reason  why  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  attend  the 
gathering  of  the  people  in  the  evening  after  his  great  Spring- 
field speech.  The  extreme  Abolitionists,  blind  to  the  meaning 
of  that  which  was  passing  before  their  eyes,  had  announced  a 
separate  meeting  of  their  own.  They  had  planned,  moreover, 
that  the  triumphant  orator  of  the  day  should  be  there  present 
and  be  forced  to  identify  himself  with  their  faction.  He  was 
plainly  an  Abolitionist  in  heart  and  why  should  he  not  become 
one  in  name  ? 

It  was  a  thoroughly  sincere  and  honest  piece  of  unwisdom. 
But  even  so  ardent  an  antislavery  man  as  Mr.  Herndon  saw 
the  danger  to  his  friend  and  to  all  the  interests  at  stake,  and  he 
hastened  to  give  warning.  He  himself  says : 

"  I  rushed  to  Lincoln  and  said, '  Lincoln,  go  home ;  take  Bob 
and  the  buggy  and  leave  the  county ;  go  quickly ;  right  off ; 
and  never  mind  the  order  of  your  going.'  He  stayed  away  till 
all  conventions  and  fairs  were  over." 


150  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

It  was  the  announced  purpose  of  Mr.  Douglas  to  speak  be- 
tween that  time  and  the  election  at  various  large  towns 
throughout  the  State,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  requested  to  follow 
and  reply  to  him,  according  to  the  prevailing  Western  custom. 
The  request  was  united  in  by  prominent  men  of  the  three  fac- 
tions, Whigs,  Abolitionists,  and  Anti-Nebraska  Democrats, 
which  were  already  coalescing  to  form  the  new  party  and  did 
not  know  it.  The  duty  was  promptly  accepted  by  Mr.  Lincoln, 
and  the  two  leaders  met  at  Peoria  in  a  second  encounter.  The 
results  of  this  destroyed  all  willingness  on  the  part  of  Douglas 
for  any  further  trial  of  strength.  An  agreement,  afterwards 
somewhat  departed  from,  was  entered  into,  by  the  terms  of 
which  both  combatants  retired  from  the  canvass.  It  was  a 
political  capitulation. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  Peoria  speech  was  printed  and  widely  read. 
By  it  his  followers  were  supplied  with  forcible  verbal  formulas 
for  the  expression  of  their  thoughts  and  feelings,  and  all  the 
local  speakers  of  the  fall  campaign  were  given  a  magazine  of 
fresh  material  to  draw  upon. 

Mr.  Douglas,  prior  to  his  arrangement  for  withdrawal,  had 
made  an  appointment  to  speak  at  Lacon,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  went 
to  meet  him  there,  but  refrained  from  speaking  when  he  found 
his  opponent  disabled  by  illness.  On  his  return  home  he 
learned  that  his  friends,  represented  by  Mr.  William  Jayne, 
had  announced  him  in  the  Journal  as  a  candidate  for  the 
State  Legislature,  and  that  Mrs.  Lincoln,  well  knowing  her 
husband's  views  and  wishes,  had  called  upon  the  editor,  Mr. 
Francis,  and  procured  the  removal  of  the  announcement  from 
the  paper.  Of  course  Mr.  Jayne  went  to  see  Mr.  Lincoln  on 
his  arrival,  and  he  thus  relates  the  story  of  it : 

"  I  went  to  see  him  in  order  to  get  his  consent  to  run.  This 
was  at  his  house.  He  was  then  the  saddest  man  I  ever  saw ; 
the  gloomiest.  He  walked  up  and  down  the  floor,  almost 
crying,  and  to  all  my  persuasions  to  let  his  name  stand  in  the 
paper  he  said,  *  No,  I  can't.  You  don't  know  all.  I  say  you 


A   ORE  AT  AWAKENING.  151 

don't  begin  to  know  one  half,  and  that's  enough.'  I  did,  how- 
ever, go  and  have  his  name  reinstated,  and  there  it  stood.  He 
and  Logan  were  elected  by  about  six  hundred  majority." 

There  is  a  wonderful  simplicity  about  this  whole  transaction 
of  wife  and  husband  and  devoted  friends.  Little  enough  the 
others  knew, — unless  it  may  have  been  to  some  extent  known 
to  his  wife, — the  awful  struggle  of  which  the  external  symp- 
toms so  puzzled  them. 

They  seem  to  have  sagely  decided,  although  with  some  won- 
der that  Lincoln  should  feel  so  badly  about  it,  that  he  had 
serious  doubts  of  the  advisability  of  going  to  the  Legislature 
just  then.  His  very  soul  was  wrung  to  agony  ;  they  could  see 
that ;  but  he  never  took  the  small  trouble  to  have  his  candidacy 
denied.  He  was  elected;  and  then,  as  soon  as  the  Legislature 
came  together,  he  resigned. 

There  was  an  obvious  reason  for  the  latter  step.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  well  known  to  be  a  candidate  for  United  States  Sena- 
tor, in  place  of  James  Shields,  whose  term  was  expiring.  The 
latter  had  voted  for  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  with  Mr.  Doug- 
las, and  the  opponents  of  the  hated  law  were  in  the  majority  if 
their  several  factions  could  be  induced  to  act  in  concert.  Some 
other  man  than  Shields  would  surely  be  chosen  by  the  Legis- 
lature, and  Mr.  Lincoln's  sense  of  propriety  forbade  him  to  sit 
as  a  member  of  the  body  which  was  to  act  upon  his  claims  as  a 
candidate. 

He  had  a  strong  desire  to  go  to  the  Senate,  there  to  continue 
the  war  he  had  so  well  begun.  He  was  no  prophet,  and  had 
none  to  tell  him  that,  for  a  time  at  least,  private  life  was  a  bet- 
ter place  for  him  than  the  dignified  assembly  which  has  been 
shrewdly  described  as  "  the  graveyard  of  Presidential  candi- 
dates." It  was  necessary  that  he  should  remain  a  man  of  the 
people,  among  the  people ;  studying  the  course  of  events  bet- 
ter than  that  could  be  done  in  the  heated  atmosphere  of  the 
Capitol.  It  was  equally  needful  that  he  should  keep  himself 
untrammeled  by  the  fetters  of  official  responsibility,  and  that 


152  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

he  should  avoid  the  sure  peril  of  injudicious  utterances  in  the 
fierce  debates  that  were  soon  to  come,  and  to  which  the  country 
was  to  listen  as  it  had  never  listened  before. 

More  than  all  was  it  needful  that  the  forces  preparing  and 
growing  within  him  should  have  two  years  of  accumulation, 
rather  than  exhaustion. 

On  the  8th  of  February,  1855,  the  Legislature  took  in  hand 
the  election  of  a  United  States  Senator.  It  was  found  that 
Gen.  Shields,  and  after  him  ex-Governor  Mattison,  to  whom 
the  Democrats  transferred  their  strength,  had  forty-one  votes ; 
while  the  anti-Democratic  majority  were  divided,  giving  to 
Mr.  Lincoln  forty-five,  Mr.  Trumbull  five,  and  Mr.  Koerner 
two.  Forty-seven  were  required  to  elect,  and  repeated  ballotings 
brought  no  change  in  favor  of  either  of  the  leading  candidates. 
Then  came  signs  of  danger  that  some  of  Mr.  Trumbull's  sup- 
porters, who  were  opposed  to  the  Kansas-Nebraska  measure,  but 
were  Democrats  all,  and  old  political  opponents  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, might  relapse  into  their  former  party  allegiance.  Mr. 
Lincoln's  advice  was  asked  and  given.  He  said  without  a  mo- 
ment's hesitation :  "  You  ought  to  drop  me  and  go  for  Trum- 
bull. That  is  the  only  way  you  can  defeat  Mattison." 

His  friend,  Judge  Logan,  urged  that  he  should  continue  to 
be  a  candidate,  but  was  firmly  answered : 

"  If  I  do,  you  will  lose  both  Trumbull  and  myself,  and  I 
think  the  cause,  in  this  case,  is  to  be  preferred  to  men." 

The  Whigs  obeyed,  in  bitterness  of  spirit,  and  Lyman  Trum- 
bull was  chosen  Senator  instead  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  act 
of  the  latter  did  more  than  send  an  able  and  patriotic  man  to 
the  Senate.  It  retained  the  anti-Nebraska  Democratic  element 
in  the  new  party,  in  that  and  in  other  States.  It  kept  Lincoln 
at  home  in  Illinois,  but  in  charge  of  all  further  consolidation  of 
jarring  elements,  and  with  the  threads  of  all  control  more 
firmly  in  his  hands  than  ever.  His  neighbors  had  trusted  his 
integrity  and  recognized  his  capacity.  They  were  now  com- 
pelled to  acknowledge  and  to  honor  his  rare  unselfishness. 


A  GREAT  AWAKENING.  153 

The  sacrifice  had  cost  him  something,  but  the  unexpected  re- 
ward was  promptly  and  loyally  paid  him. 

It  was  an  additional  recompense,  shortly  afterwards,  to  find 
how  bravely  and  how  well  Senator  Tmmbull  was  performing 
the  high  duty  so  magnanimously  surrendered  to  him.  His 
very  presence  in  the  Senate-chamber  was  a  visible  warning  to 
the  slavery  propagandists  that  their  long  control  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  of  the  North  had  been  broken  forever. 


154  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEE  XXI. 

THE   NEW   PARTY. 

Bleeding  Kansas — A  Watchful  Friend — Trapping  a  Trapper — The  Bloom- 
ington  Convention — General  Apathy — The  Voice  of  Faith. 

OF  the  two  Territories  created  by  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill, 
the  former  was  manifestly  the  more  nearly  ready  for  admis- 
sion into  the  Union  as  a  State.  Upon  the  soil  of  Kansas, 
therefore,  the  contending  political  forces  had  already  begun  to 
pour  themselves,  in  a  tide  of  extraordinary  immigration  from 
the  older  States.  The  lawless  and  often  bloody  scenes  enacting 
there  were  doing  much  to  convince  the  nation  that  the  days  of 
mere  argument,  and  even  of  mere  balloting,  were  passing  away. 
A  most  peaceful  generation,  born  and  nurtured  in  the  hatred 
of  all  violence,  was  undergoing  a  process  of  habituation  to  the 
idea  of  brute  force  as  a  tribunal  of  final  appeal. 

The  sympathies  of  the  anti-slavery  men  of  Illinois  were 
strongly  appealed  to  on  behalf  of  their  downtrodden  brethren 
of  Kansas.  In  1856,  not  long  after  the  Senatorial  election,  an 
association  was  formed  of  the  more  zealous  Abolitionists,  with 
the  view  of  emigrating,  armed  and  equipped,  to  what  was  prac- 
tically the  seat  of  civil  war.  Among  these  was  Mr.  Hern- 
don,  and  his  purpose  could  not  long  be  concealed  from  his 
wiser,  cooler,  more  far-seeing  law-partner.  By  some  means 
Mr.  Lincoln  got  the  hot-heads  together,  and  addressed  them  in 
the  name  of  peace,  law,  order,  and  sound  common-sense.  He 
not  only  convinced  them  that  their  purpose  was  wrong,  but 
that  it  was  foolish,  and  persuaded  them  to  stay  at  home.  He 
joined  them,  however,  in  sending  pecuniary  and  other  contri- 


THE  NEW  PARTY.  155 

butions  to  the  assistance  of  the  actual  Kansas  settlers  who  were 
suffering  in  consequence  of  the  political  disorders. 

He  himself  had  been  too  wise,  in  his  most  earnest  utter- 
ances, to  avow  himself  an  extreme  Abolitionist.  In  his  mind, 
the  country  had  other  interests  than  those  of  the  black  man. 
The  future  of  the  white  race  was  also  entitled  to  some  consid- 
eration. The  best  good  of  all  forbade  indifference  to  the  wel- 
fare of  any  part. 

The  several  factions  into  which  the  opposition  to  the  con- 
trolling party  was  still  divided  in  Illinois  were  in  a  state  of 
seeming  blindness  to  their  approaching  consolidation ;  but  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  not.  Each  coterie  put  forth  eager  but  vain  efforts 
to  secure  the  adhesion  to  their  number  of  the  man  who  con- 
tained in  himself  more  power  than  any  or  all  of  them.  They 
compelled  him  to  exercise  great  care.  So  reticent  was  he,  so 
cautious  not  to  make  any  answer  which  should  seem  to  identify 
his  name  with  any  clique  or  segment,  that  even  Mr.  Herndon 
felt  himself  called  upon  to  labor  with  his  friend  in  the  interest 
of  the  cause  of  freedom.  He  lent  him  antislavery  books  and 
papers  ;  read  him  extracts  from  speeches  and  lectures ;  strove 
in  every  way  to  arouse  in  him  a  more  aggressive  hatred  of 
slavery  and  a  disposition  to  fight  against  it.  Mr.  Lincoln  might 
well  have  said  to  him,  as  he  had  said  to  Mr.  Jayne :  "  You 
don't  begin  to  know  the  half  of  it,  and  that's  enough." 

He  said  very  little,  however,  and  his  friend  persisted  in  con- 
sidering him  unsettled  in  his  political  mind. 

The  radicals  of  every  name  were  shortly  summoned  to  a 
State  convention  to  be  held  at  Bloomington,  and  a  "  call "  was 
circulated  in  Springfield  for  a  county  convention  for  the  selec- 
tion of  delegates.  There  still  remained  a  curious  doubt  as  to 
the  course  Mr.  Lincoln  would  pursue.  He  was  absent  when 
the  "  call "  was  passed  around  for  signatures,  but  Mr.  Herndon, 
zealously  determined  to  make  him  commit  himself,  signed  his 
name  to  it  for  him.  Nothing  could  add  to  Mr.  Herndon's  own 
account  of  the  transaction  and  its  consequences.  He  says : 


156  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  I  determined  to  make  him  take  a  stand,  if  he  would  not  do 
it  willingly,  as  he  might  have  done,  as  he  was  naturally  in- 
clined Abolitionward.  Lincoln  was  absent  when  the  call  was 
signed  and  circulated  here.  I  signed  Mr.  Lincoln's  name  with- 
out authority ;  had  it  published  in  the  Journal.  John  T. 
Stuart  was  keeping  his  eye  on  Lincoln,  with  the  view  of  keep- 
ing him  on  his  side — the  totally  dead  conservative  side.  Mr. 
Stuart  saw  the  published  call  and  grew  mad ;  rushed  into  my 
office.  Seemed  mad  and  horrified,  and  said  to  me,  *  Sir,  did 
Mr.  Lincoln  sign  that  Abolition  call  which  is  published  this 
morning  ? '  I  answered,  '  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  sign  that  call.' 
'  Did  Mr.  Lincoln  authorize  you  to  sign  it  ? '  said  Mr.  Stuart. 
*  !Nb,  he  never  authorized  me  to  sign  it.'  '  Then  do  you  know 
that  you  have  ruined  Mr.  Lincoln 2 '  'I  did  not  know  that  I 
had  ruined  Mr.  Lincoln ;  did  not  intend  to  do  so  ;  thought  he 
was  a  made  man  by  it ;  that  the  time  had  come  when  conser- 
vatism was  a  crime  and  a  blunder.'  '  You,  then,  take  the  re- 
sponsibility of  your  acts,  do  you  ? '  ( I  do,  most  emphatically.' 
However,  I  sat  down  and  wrote  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  was  then 
in  Pekin  or  Tremont,  possibly  at  court.  He  received  my  let- 
ter and  instantly  replied,  either  by  letter  or  telegraph, — most 
likely  by  letter, — that  he  adopted  in  toto  what  I  had  done,  and 
promised  to  meet  the  radicals — Lovejoy  and  such-like  men — 
among  us." 

All  this  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  they  thought  it  was  need- 
ful to  entrap  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  this  is  the  way  in  which  the 
large  game  was  caught  and  caged. 

There  was,  however,  something  of  a  surprise  in  store  for  the 
successful  trappers.  When  the  State  convention  came  together 
at  Bloomington,  it  was  found  to  comprise  strong  conservative 
as  well  as  ultra-progressive  elements.  It  was  precisely  the 
conclave  for  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  long  been  waiting,  and  the 
opportunity  had  come  for  him  to  deliver  another  decisive 
speech.  He  was  undeniably  the  man  of  the  occasion,  and 
others  were  waiting  to  hear  from  him. 


THE  NEW  PARTY.  157 

It  was  pretty  well  understood  that  his  utterance  would  be 
regarded  as  the  voice  of  the  convention,  and  would  be,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  the  "  platform"  upon  which  it  would  be 
compelled  to  stand.  So  to  speak,  he  had  taken  possession  of 
the  trap  wherein  his  wise  friends  had  caged  him  and  was 
calmly  proceeding  to  capture  the  trappers. 

The  speech  he  made  has  been  declared  the  ablest  of  his 
strictly  political  addresses.  In  many  respects  it  is  certainlythe 
most  interesting  of  all.  He  was  able,  for  the  first  time,  to 
free  his  arguments  from  many  of  the  meshes  formerly  cast 
around  them  by  existing  laws,  by  "  compromises,"  and  by  ex- 
pressed or  implied  social  contracts.  Mr.  Douglas  and  his 
friends  in  Congress  had  done  this  much  for  him  and  for  free- 
dom. 

The  new  party,  thus  beginning  to  assume  organic  existence, 
first  assumed  the  name  of  "  Republican"  at  this  particular  Con- 
vention at  Bloomington,  Illinois,  and  it  has  been  common  to 
say  that  it  was  "  born"  then  and  there.  This  is  simply  a  con- 
fusion of  ideas,  for  the  young  political  organism  had  already 
left  its  cradle  and  was  advanced  far  along  the  line  of  prepara- 
tion for  the  severe  work  of  early  manhood.  There  is  a  differ- 
ence between  mere  ceremonies  of  christening  and  other  vital- 
izing processes  of  creation. 

Apart  from  the  more  glowing  paragraphs  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
speech,  the  proceedings  at  Bloomington  were  apparently  con- 
servative, and  the  extremists  were  but  little  pleased  with  them. 

The  "  platform"  actually  adopted  did  not  go  far  enough,  and 
yet  it  went  to  the  limit  of  what  Mr.  Lincoln  believed  the  peo- 
ple were  ready  to  accept.  It  went  so  much  further  than  that 
in  fact,  and  the  whole  undertaking  had  in  it  so  much  of  au- 
dacity, of  presumptuous  rebellion  against  the  existing  order 
of  things,  of  an  advance  into  unknown  and  perilous  ground, 
that  the  report  of  it  was  received  with  general  apathy  and  was 
followed  by  a  mysteriously  deep  and  timid  reaction.  So  strong 
in  the  minds  of  men  was  the  doubt  as  to  what  course  they 


158  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

should  pursue,  that  the  entire  voting  population  may  be  said 
to  have  held  its  political  breath.  About  five  days  after  the 
adjournment  of  the  convention,  a  public  meeting  was  called  in 
Springfield  to  "  ratify"  the  action  taken.  The  county  court- 
house, where  the  meeting  was  to  be  held,  was  well  lighted ; 
the  usual  posters  on  all  the  fences  had  announced  the  meeting 
and  the  name  of  the  distinguished  orator  who  was  to  address 
it ;  a  band  of  music  paraded  the  streets  to  drum  up  enthusiasm, 
and  the  bells  were  rung.  The  net  result  of  all  these  praise- 
worthy efforts  is  reported  by  Mr.  Herndon,  who,  with  Mr.  Lin- 
coln and  a  man  named  John  Pain,  were  all  the  multitude  the 
occasion  brought  together : 

"  When  Mr.  Lincoln  came  into  the  court-house,  he  came 
with  a  sadness  and  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous  on  his  face.  He 
walked  to  the  stand,  mounted  it  with  a  kind  of  mocking, — 
mirth  and  sadness  all  combined, — and  said  :  '  Gentlemen,  this 
meeting  is  larger  than  I  knew  it  would  be.  I  knew  that 
Herndon  and  myself  would  come,  but  I  did  not  know  that 
any  one  else  would  be  here ;  and  yet  another  has  come, — you, 
John  Pain.  These  are  sad  times  and  seem  out  of  joint.  All 
seems  dead,  dead,  dead ;  but  the  age  is  not  yet  dead :  it  liveth 
as  sure  as  our  Maker  liveth.  Under  all  this  seeming  want  of 
life  and  motion  the  world  does  move,  nevertheless.  Be  hope- 
ful. And  now  let  us  adjourn,  and  appeal  to  the  people.'  " 

He  made  many  longer  speeches  in  the  course  of  his  life,  but 
not  one  that  was  braver  or  better.  He  well  understood  the 
true  nature  of  the  temporary  paralysis  of  the  new  political 
movement,  and  had  measured  the  forces  whose  irrepressible 
activities  forbade  its  long  continuance.  Nevertheless,  it  re- 
quired a  good  deal  of  faith  to  stand  up  in  an  empty  hall  and  so 
address  Mr.  Herndon  and  John  Pain. 


THE  COMIX G  MAN.  159 


CHAPTEE  XXH. 

THE   COMING   MAN. 

The  Fremont  Campaign — Lincoln  for  Vice-President — The  Southern  Threat 
— Days  of  Preparation — Buchanan's  Term — One  Story  Higher — A 
Murder  Case. 

THE  varied  elements  of  the  new  party,  in  all  those  parts  of 
the  country  wherein  it  could  be  permitted  to  exist,  were  now 
rapidly  coalescing,  but  did  not  yet  call  themselves  Eepublicans. 
A  "  national  convention"  was  held  at  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania, 
in  February,  1856,  but  adjourned  without  making  nominations. 
A  second  convention  met  at  Philadelphia,  on  the  17th  of  June, 
and  nominated  John  C.  Fremont  for  President  and  William 
L.  Dayton  for  Yice-President.  The  supporters  of  these  candi- 
dates very  generally  concealed  their  hesitation  as  to  their  future 
political  course  by  styling  themselves  vaguely  "  The  People's 
Party." 

At  the  Philadelphia  convention,  when  the  Illinois  delega- 
tion, in  its  turn,  was  called  upon  to  present  a  nomination  for 
the  office  of  Yice-President  of  the  United  States,  its  chairman 
announced  the  name  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  When  the  ballots 
were  counted,  he  was  found  to  be  the  second  on  the  list  of 
candidates,  having  received  110  votes.  Mr.  Dayton,  had  289 
votes,  and  180  ballots  were  distributed  among  many  other 
names. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  yet  had  time  to  think  much  of  his  own 
political  prospects  in  connection  with  the  new  party.  Position 
and  power  had  come  to  him  more  rapidly  than  he  was  aware. 
So  little  did  he  know  how  strong  a  hold  he  was  taking  upon 
the  minds  of  men  that  the  honor  thus  given  him  came  as  a 


160  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

complete  surprise.  He  was  attending  court  in  Urbana,  Cham- 
paign County,  when  the  telegraph  brought  the  news  that  Day- 
ton had  been  nominated,  but  that  "  Mr.  Lincoln  received  110 
votes." 

"  That  must  be  our  Lincoln,"  half  doubtfully  remarked  some 
of  his  friends  in  his  hearing ;  but  he  said,  "  No,  it  could  not 
be :  it  must  have  been  the  great  Lincoln  from  Massachusetts." 
There  was,  indeed,  a  prominent  citizen  of-  that  State  who 
bore  the  same  name. 

All  that  was  left  of  the  old  "Whig  party  nominated  "  Fill- 
more  and  Donelson."  The  Democrats  nominated  "  Buchanan 
and  Breckinridge,"  with  a  positive  assurance  of  success.  The 
campaign  began  at  once,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  went  into  it  with  all 
his  energy,  as  a  candidate  for  Fresidential  Elector  of  the  State 
of  Illinois,  on  the  Fremont  and  Dayton  ticket.  In  so  doing, 
he  was,  of  necessity,  brought  before  the  entire  country  as  the 
immediate  antagonist  and,  as  it  proved,  intellectual  superior  of 
of  the  Democratic  champion,  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  a  man  of 
national  reputation.  Mr.  Lincoln's  closest  friends  and  warmest 
admirers  in  Illinois  had  but  inadequate  ideas  of  the  extent  to 
which,  in  part  or  in  whole,  the  speeches  of  the  man  whom  they 
regarded  as  their  excellent  and,  in  some  things,  very  capable 
neighbor  were  read  by  the  people  of  other  States.  They  little 
guessed  how  widely  and  deeply  the  foundations  of  his  repute 
and  power  were  building  through  all  the  busy  days  of  that 
great  though  seemingly  unsuccessful  campaign. 

Any  discussing  of  pending  questions,  as  then  formulated, 
may  be  set  aside  as  belonging  to  the  political  history  of  the 
times  rather  than  to  the  biography  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Not 
so,  however,  with  the  fact  that  the  Democratic  press  and  ora- 
tors, North  and  South,  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  campaign 
of  1856,  held  up  before  the  people  the  red  specters  of  dis- 
union and  civil  war,  to  deter  all  timid  men  from  opposing  the 
onward  march  of  slavery.  It  was  not  a  mere  threat,  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  at  no  time  treated  it  as  such,  but  discussed  it  seriously. 


THE  COMING  MAN.  161 

He  repeatedly  argued  the  wicked  unreason  of  regarding  the 
election  of  the  anti-slavery  candidates  as  an  excuse  for  the 
commission  of  the  proposed  crime. 

He  clearly  perceived  the  reality  of  the  coming  peril,  even 
while  he  publicly  declared  its  devilish  folly.  His  fits  of  de- 
spondency came  upon  him  more  frequently  than  ever,  and 
more  darkly.  There  was  no  suddenness  whatever  in  this  ripen- 
ing of  his  understanding  and  the  appreciation  of  the  forces  in 
collision.  It  had  come  with  the  growth  of  his  personal  convic- 
tions of  duty  and  with  his  painfully  labored  study  of  the 
measures  wisely  to  be  taken  or  avoided,  the  words  well  to  be= 
uttered  or  left  unspoken,  and  of  the  slow  processes  through 
which  the  general  popular  mind  was  unwittingly  preparing  to- 
meet  the  wrath  to  come. 

It  has  been  only  too  common  a  stupidity  for  men  to  look  upon 
Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  species  of  political  miracle;  a  prodigy  of 
sudden  sagacity  and  power ;  blindly  selected  from  among  an 
unknown  multitude  by  the  chance-medley  results  of  a  political 
lottery  at  a  convention  ;  swiftly  expanding  to  colossal  knowl- 
edge and  wisdom  under  the  furnace-heat  of  circumstances. 
Sound  common-sense  and  healthy  human  reason  have  no  faith 
in  such  irrational  marvels. 

Every  day  of  his  life,  prior  to  the  Fremont  campaign,  had 
been  a  preparation  for  it.  Every  hour  of  that  intense  excite- 
ment was  surcharged  with  the  same  close,  penetrating,  unf or- 
getting  study  that  he  had  given  to  the  charcoal  scores  on  his 
Indiana  shingle ;  to  the  law-books  he  devoured  during  his  hot 
walks  from  Springfield  to  New  Salem ;  or  to  the  Euclid  or 
Shakespeare  he  carried  with  him  in  his  borrowed  buggy  around 
the  Sangamon  three-months'  circuit. 

Every  corner  of  his  soul  was  a  busy  workshop,  with  no  open 
windows  through  which  other  men  could  look  in  and  see  what 
was  going  on.  While  others  were  discontentedly  waiting  and 
wondering  what  would  be  the  end  of  it  all,  he  was  aiding  them 
to  wait  with  better  patience.  At  the  same  time  he  was  saga- 


162  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ciously  aiding  them  in  getting  ready  for  such  action  as  might 
be  required  when  the  hour  should  come  to  wait  no  longer. 
When  that  hour  came,  it  was  only  because  of  their  own  sur- 
prise at  what  he  said  and  did  that  they  dimly  imagined  he 
must  also  be  astonishing  himself. 

The  results  of  the  November  voting  were  precisely  what  all 
but  a  few  over-sanguine  and  inexperienced  politicians  had  ex- 
pected. Mr.  Buchanan  was  elected  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  Democratic  party  seemed  to  be  settled  more 
firmly  than  ever  in  its  long-held  place  of  power.  True,  there 
was  a  strong  and  persistent  minority  of  Republicans  in  each 
House  of  Congress.  Their  numbers  were  growing,  and  they 
were  soon  to  be  in  control  of  the  Lower  House.  They  had  al- 
ready carried  one  of  their  number  to  the  Speaker's  chair,  but 
with  an  ill-disciplined  and  somewhat  uncertain  support  for  him 
after  he  was  put  there.  The  assumption  of  the  name  "  Repub- 
licans" by  the  new  party  was  progressive,  as  the  several  ele- 
ments and  factions  were  from  day  to  day  absorbed  by  it. 
The  newspaper  reporters  and  editors  aided  the  process  by  a 
continual  application  of  the  term. 

The  hot  debates  of  the  sessions  now  to  follow  would  weld 
that  fragmentary  mass  upon  the  floor  of  the  House  into  the 
compactness  of  hammered  iron.  Already  the  watchful  eyes  of 
the  Southern  leaders  were  noting  the  menacing  fact  that  the 
new  party  lost  no  inch  of  vantage-ground  once  fairly  won. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  law-practice  was  now  larger  than  ever  before, 
and  was  fairly  lucrative,  although  his  fees  were  never  such  as 
prominent  Eastern  counsel  were  in  the  habit  of  receiving.  His 
first  really  heavy  fee,  of  five  thousand  dollars  for  services  ren- 
dered the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company,  was  actually  dis- 
puted by  that  corporation  as  extortionate,  although  they  would 
have  paid  it  instantly  to  any  leader  of  the  New  York  bar.  Mr. 
Lincoln  brought  suit  for  his  claim,  and  a  "  jury  of  lawyers" 
affirmed  its  justice  before  it  was  paid  him.  He  was  living  in 
a  good  but  very  unobtrusive  style.  His  house  had  grown  to  a 


THE  COMING  MAN.  163 

sufficient  size  under  the  hands  of  his  wife  rather  than  his  own. 
During  one  of  his  long  professional  absences,  she  procured  the 
building  of  a  larger  and  handsomer  second  story,  with  a  new 
roof  and  a  coat  of  fresh  paint  over  all.  On  her  husband's  re- 
turn, he  is  said  to  have  paused  for  a  moment  in  front  of  the 
unexpected  transformation,  and  then  to  have  jocosely  hailed  a 
passer-by : 

"  Stranger,  can  you  tell  me  where  Lincoln  lives  ?  He  used 
to  live  here." 

It  was  entirely  impossible  for  even  a  busy  lawyer  to  keep 
out  of  politics  altogether  during  the  year  and  a  half  immedi- 
ately following  the  inauguration  of  President  Buchanan.  The 
course  of  events  in  Kansas  and  in  Congress  was  such  as  daily 
to  fan  the  popular  excitement.  All  men  were  beginning  to 
discern  for  themselves  the  exact  nature  and  direction  of  their 
moral  and  intellectual  leanings.  The  greater  number  were 
rising  toward  the  high  rank  of  persons  having  convictions, 
purposes,  and  some  knowledge  of  public  affairs.  Below  these 
was  the  swarming  mob  of  those  who  can  feel  but  who  cannot 
think.  These  latter,  like  their  betters,  were  waiting  for  a 
leader  and  a  plainly  uttered  "  order  of  the  day."  Both  were 
to  come  in  due  time,  for  the  one  was  formulating  the  other 
and  was  patiently  awaiting  the  right  time  for  its  utterance. 

During  the  summer  of  the  year  1857  a  man  named  Metzgar 
was  murdered  at  a  camp-meeting  in  Mason  County,  Illinois, 
and  two  men,  named  James  H.  Norris  and  William  D.  Arm- 
strong, were  accused  of  the  crime.  The  former  was  tried  in 
Mason  County,  convicted  of  manslaughter,  and  sentenced  to 
eight  years  of  prison-life.  The  popular  feeling  against  Arm- 
strong was  so  bitter  that  it  was  doubted  if  a  fair  trial  could  be 
given  him  near  the  scene  of  the  murder.  A  "  change  of 
venue"  was  therefore  taken  to  Beardstown,  in  Cass  County, 
where  he  was  tried  for  murder,  in  the  spring  of  1858. 

Armstrong  was  a  mere  "  rough"  and  wretchedly  poor ;  but 
he  had  not  committed  the  murder  he  was  accused  of.  He 


164  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

was  a  son  of  that  Jack  Armstrong  of  Clary's  Grove,  near  New 
Salem,  whose  affection  Lincoln  had  gained  by  shaking  him  at 
arm's  length.  "When  a  baby  he  had  been  rocked  in  his  cradle 
by  his  father's  tall  friend,  while  his  mother,  Hannah  Arm- 
strong, attended  to  other  household  duties.  At  one  time  Lin- 
coln had  been  almost  a  member  of  the  family. 

Hannah  was  old  now,  and  she  had  no  money  to  pay  lawyers, 
but  she  had  faith  in  her  friend,  and  wrote  him  an  account  of 
her  trouble.  Mr.  Lincoln  at  once  replied  that  he  would  under- 
take the  defense,  but  the  heartbroken  old  woman  managed  to 
travel  to  Springfield  that  she  might  tell  him  all  she  knew 
about  the  matter,  and  win  his  honest  help  as  well  as  his 
sympathy. 

It  seemed  a  hopeless  case,  for  the  evidence  against  Arm- 
strong was  clear  and  positive  and  not  at  all  circumstantial.  It 
appeared  to  be  inevitable  that  he  would  be  convicted  not  of 
manslaughter  but  of  murder,  and  that  he  would  surely  be 
hanged  for  his  crime,  and  as  the  principal  offender. 

Mr.  Lincoln  appeared  in  court  on  the  day  of  trial,  but  gave 
over  the  verbal  management  of  the  witnesses  to  his  colleague 
in  the  case,  Mr.  Walker,  who  had  already  made  a  study  of  it. 
He  himself  did  little  more  than  to  suggest  questions  and 
keenly  watch  for  the  way  of  escape  which  no  other  man  in  the 
court-room  believed  could  be  discovered. 

The  proof  of  murder  was  complete.  Good  witnesses  testi- 
fied to  having  seen  Armstrong  commit  the  deed,  by  the  light 
of  a  nearly  full  moon  shining  high  in  a  cloudless  heaven.  Until 
Mr.  Lincoln  arose  to  speak,  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  stood  prac- 
tically convicted,  and  the  jury  could  have  given  against  him  a 
verdict  of  "  guilty"  without  leaving  their  seats. 

The  evidence,  however,  was  only  too  perfect.  It  was  too 
nicely  fitted  and  adjusted,  and  when  taken  up  in  the  hands  of 
a  master  it  came  to  pieces  and  could  be  put  together  again  in 
another  shape  so  as  to  show  that  the  murder  was  not  commit- 
ted then  and  there  by  that  man,  but  elsewhere,  afterwards,  and 


THE  COMING  MAN.  165 

by  other  hands.  The  speaker  went  on  step  by  step  until  he 
was  ready  to  call  upon  the  clerk  of  the  court  for  an  almanac 
which  he  had  previously  placed  in  his  hands  for  the  purpose. 
Then  he  asked  the  jury  to  note  the  fact  that  at  the  alleged 
hour  of  the  murder,  instead  of  the  splendor  of  moonlight 
sworn  to  by  the  prosecuting  witnesses,  there  was  no  moon  at 
all  and  darkness  reigned. 

Court,  jury,  lawyers,  burst  into  a  roar  of  astonished  laughter ; 
but  the  moment  it  died  away  Mr.  Lincoln  launched  out  into  a 
speech  which  has  been  described  by  all  who  heard  it  as  won- 
derfully eloquent.  All  said  that  it  saved  the  life  of  Arm- 
strong, without  reference  to  the  testimony  so  skillfully  pulled 
to  pieces,  by  its  touching  description  of  his  own  early  struggles 
and  the  kindness  then  shown  him  by  the  now  widowed  mother 
of  the  prisoner  at  the  bar.  He  believed  the  young  man  inno- 
cent, and  he  made  the  jury  believe  so  with  him.  There  were 
tears  in  his  voice  and  in  his  eyes,  however,  while  he  talked  of 
those  old  days  of  hardship  and  toil  and  privation,  and  of  the 
simple,  rough,  kindly-hearted  prairie  people  with  whom  he  had 
shared  them.  It  was  a  noble  appeal,  full  of  pathos,  argument, 
genius,  eloquence,  persuasive  power.  More  than  all  this  is 
such  an  utterance  of  value  in  the  study  of  his  life  and  char- 
acter, by  the  revelation  it  affords  of  his  own  perpetual  con- 
sciousness of  the  level  from  which  he  had  climbed  and  of  the 
inner  forces  by  whose  operation  he  had  arisen.  In  this  is  to 
be  found  one  secret  of  his  influence  over  men  who  remained 
at  or  near  that  first  low  level,  for  it  is  more  than  likely  that 
the  jury  before  him  was  largely  composed  of  such  men.  More 
than  one  of  his  most  important  public  utterances,  as  President 
of  the  United  States,  will  be  found  on  analysis  to  have  been 
framed  and  worded  that  it  might  reach  the  understandings  and 
the  hearts  of  that  vast  popular  jury  which  is  but  a  multiplica- 
tion of  country  juries  and  the  "  boys"  of  Clary's  Grove.  In 
order  that  he  might  have  and  retain  this  power,  he  faithfully 
carried  with  him  to  the  very  end,  half  mournfully,  half  lov- 


166  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ingly,  a  minute  memory  and  understanding  of  all  the  events  of 
Ms  early  life,  and  of  all  the  persons,  types  of  character,  experi- 
ences, which  thereby  had  been  made  his  instructors. 

When  the  hour  came  for  the  uses  of  this  peculiar  gift,  all 
the  Hannah  Armstrongs  in  the  country  felt  free  to  go  to  him 
about  their  boys,  and  all  the  Bill  Armstrongs  north  of  the 
Ohio  River  came  marching  at  his  call  in  serried  masses  of 
"  three  hundred  thousand  more." 

Polished  incapacity  shuts  its  blind  eyes  unnecessarily  to  this 
very  day,  and  sneers  at  the  unseen  lesson  it  might  learn  from 
the  great  lawyer  and  politician  weeping  genuine  tears  before 
a  Cass  County  jury  while  he  told  them  about  the  baby  and  the 
cradle  in  Jack  Armstrong's  log-cabin. 

Poor  old  Hannah  came  back  to  the  congratulations  of  the 
crowded  court-room,  from  which  she  had  fled,  after  the  speech, 
"down  to  Thompson's  pasture,"  remaining  there  until  in- 
formed of  the  acquittal  of  her  son.  The  judge  shook  hands 
with  her ;  so  did  the  jury ;  so  did  Abraham  Lincoln,  with  the 
hot  tears  pouring  down  his  face.  He  said  a  few  kind  words 
to  her  then,  and  afterwards,  when  she  asked  him  how  much 
he  was  going  to  charge  her  and  told  him  she  was  poor,  he 
said :  "  Why,  Hannah,  I  sha'n't  charge  you  a  cent.  Never. 
Anything  I  can  do  for  you  I  will  do  for  you  willingly  and 
freely  without  charges." 


POLITICAL  PROPHECY.  167 


CHAPTER  XXIH. 

POLITICAL   PROPHECY. 

A  Rejected  Leader — A  Great  Convention — An  Historical  Speech — Nomin- 
ated for  United  States  Senator — The  Joint  Debates  with  Douglas — The 
Splitting  of  the  Democratic  Party — Beginnings  of  a  Presidential 
Nomination — Spring  1858  to  Spring  1859. 

THE  term  for  which  Stephen  A.  Douglas  had  been  elected 
to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  was  now  drawing  to  a  close. 
He  was,  as  a  matter  of  course,  a  candidate  for  re-election ;  but 
there  had  been  a  great  change  in  his  political  relations  since 
the  beginning  of  the  Buchanan  Administration.  He  had  sev- 
ered his  previous  connection  with  the  Southern  chiefs  of  the 
Democracy  and  their  more  subservient  tools  at  the  North. 
The  tremendous  lessons  of  the  Fremont  campaign  had  not 
been  lost  upon  him.  He  saw  that  a  large  and  much  the  more 
intelligent  section  of  the  Northern  Democracy  would  go  no 
further  in  submission  to  the  arrogant  demands  of  the  slave 
power.  He  boldly  and  ably  put  himself  at  their  head  and 
forced  them  to  acknowledge  him  as  their  representative. 
When  that  was  accomplished,  he  would  willingly  have  led 
them  bodily  into  the  Eepublican  camp  could  he  have  been 
assured  as  a  reward  a  re-election  to  the  Senate. 

Many  sincere  Republicans  earnestly  advocated  the  proposed 
coalition,  but  the  greater  number  distrusted  Mr.  Douglas. 
They  were  willing  to  receive  him  as  a  recruit  but  not  as  a 
commanding  officer.  Headed  by  Senator  Trumbull,  who  had 
now  become  fully  identified  with  the  new  party,  the  Illi- 
nois Republicans  determined  to  stand  or  fall  by  their  existing 
organization.  Having  so  determined,  there  could  be  but  one 


168  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

voice  as  to  who  should  be  their  standard-bearer  in  the  battle 
before  them.  When,  however,  in  April,  1858,  the  Democratic 
State  Convention  met,  and,  after  making  the  usual  nominations 
for  State  officers,  added  thereto  an  indorsement  of  Mr.  Doug- 
las, it  was  again  strongly  urged  by  some  Republicans  that  the 
great  Democratic  Senator  was  not  only  himself  advancing  in 
the  right  direction  but  was  skillfully  taking  his  whole  party 
with  him.  It  was  declared  to  be  the  part  of  wisdom  for  the 
Republicans  to  name  no  candidate  against  him.  They  should 
rather  accept  and  even  triumphantly  claim  him  as  their  own. 

The  proposition  was  not  at  all  unreasonable.  At  that  day, 
Mr.  Douglas  was  quite  enough  of  an  anti-slavery  man  to  satisfy 
the  great  majority  of  those  who  called  themselves  Republicans 
and  deemed  it  a  kind  of  "  radicalism"  to  stand  upon  the  plat- 
form of  principles  they  had  vaguely  adopted  for  the  uses  of 
the  Fremont  campaign.  They  were  somewhat  in  ignorance 
of  their  own  immediate  future.  The  old  battle-field,  with 
which  they  had  grown  fairly  familiar,  was  not  at  all  the  one  to 
which  they  were  now  to  be  led,  neither  was  it  in  the  heart  or 
brain  of  Mr.  Douglas  to  marshal  them  for  the  ground  upon 
which  they  were  shortly  to  be  arrayed.  If  they  had  accepted 
him,  as  proposed,  he  would  have  led  them  to  a  sure  victory — 
over  nothing  whatever.  Rejecting  him,  they  were  to  be  led 
to  a  sure  defeat,  followed  by  a  surer  victory,  under  the  orders 
of  a  captain  able  to  see  beyond  the  narrow  consequences  of  the 
present  emergency. 

The  Republican  State  Convention  was  called  to  meet  at 
Springfield  on  the  16th  of  June.  When  gathered,  the  dele- 
gates, with  their  alternates,  actually  present  numbered  nearly  a 
thousand  men.  They  represented  nearly  all  the  old  parties  and 
fractions  of  parties,  and  were  of  all  shades  of  political  opinion 
and  social  standing.  Owing  to  the  peculiar  composition  of  the 
population  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  the  entire  country  was  per- 
sonally represented  in  that  assembly.  There  were  men  there 
from  every  Northern  State  and  from  many  States  of  the 


POLITICAL  PROPHECY.  169 

South.  An  unusually  large  proportion  were  young  men 
never  before  active  in  politics.  It  was  to  such  a  conclave  as 
this  that  Mr.  Lincoln  deliberately  prepared  to  present  the  issue 
before  the  country.  He  decided  that  it  must  be  so  presented 
that  no  man  among  them  could  fail  to  understand  it. 

That  he  would  be  the  orator  of  the  occasion  was  a  matter  of 
course,  and  the  preparation  of  the  speech  he  was  to  make  was 
a  task  the  performance  of  which  is  worthy  of  careful  noting. 
It  was  not  the  work  of  a  mere  politician ;  it  was  the  thought- 
ful expression  of  a  human  life.  It  came  from  his  mind  in 
scraps  and  small  pieces,  a  sentence  at  a  time,  jotted  down  on 
fragments  and  slips  of  paper.  Then  at  last  these  were  gathered 
and  put  into  form  for  delivery  and  for  printing.  All  those 
detached  segments  had  been  growing  in  the  speaker's  thought 
through  gloomy,  toilsome  years. 

On  the  16th  of  June  the  Convention  unanimously  adopted 
the  following  resolution : 

"That  Abraham  Lincoln  is  our  first  and  only  choice  for 
United  States  Senator,  to  fill  the  vacancy  about  to  be  created 
by  the  expiration  of  Mr.  Douglas's  term  of  office." 

They  were  now  pledged  to  their  chosen  chief  beyond  recall, 
and  must  abide  by  his  leadership. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  taken  neither  advice  nor  counsel  in  the  pre- 
paration of  his  speech,  but  he  saw  the  necessity  of  also  prepar- 
ing some  of  his  nearer  friends  for  what  it  was  to  be.  He  read 
it  first  to  Mr.  Herndon,  the  most  extreme  Abolitionist  of  his 
intimates,  and  that  excellent  gentleman  timidly  asked  him : 

"  It  is  true ;  but  is  it  entirely  politic  to  speak  it  or  read  it  as 
it  is  written  ?" 

The  question  referred  particularly  to  the  key-note  of  the 
speech,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  replied : 

"  That  makes  no  difference.  That  expression  is  a  truth  of 
all  human  experience,  '  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand,'  and  '  he  that  runs  may  read.'  The  proposition  is  indis- 
putably true  and  has  been  true  for  more  than  six  thousand 


170  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

years ;  and — I  will  deliver  it  as  it  is  written.  I  want  to  use 
some  universally  known  figure,  expressed  in  simple  language 
as  universally  known,  that  may  strike  home  to  the  minds  of 
men  in  order  to  rouse  them  to  the  peril  of  the  times.  I  would 
rather  be  defeated  with  this  expression  in  the  speech,  and  it 
held  up  and  discussed  before  the  people,  than  to  be  victorious 
without  it." 

Having  sounded  the  depths  of  Abolition  courage  through 
his  friend  Herndon,  Mr.  Lincoln  proceeded  to  consult  others, 
and  finally  gathered  a  dozen  leading  men  in  the  Library  Boom 
of  the  State  House,  not  to  ask  their  guidance,  but  to  assure 
them  of  his  purpose  by  reading  the  speech  to  them,  and,  if 
possible,  to  form  a  small  nucleus  of  favorable  public  opinion 
in  advance.  He  read  and  they  listened,  and  every  man  present 
except  Mr.  Herndon,  who  had  already  caught  fire  and  was  be- 
ginning to  burn  pretty  well,  condemned  the  bold  utterance  as 
an  utter  destruction  of  the  party  at  the  hands  of  its  captain. 
It  was  in  advance  of  the  time.  It  was  unwise.  It  was  im- 
politic if  not,  indeed,  untrue. 

Mr.  Lincoln  heard  them  all  thoughtfully.  He  walked  up 
and  down  the  room ;  then  stood  still  and  said  to  them : 

"  Friends,  I  have  thought  about  this  matter  a  great  deal ; 
have  surveyed  the  question  well  from  all  corners;  and  am 
thoroughly  convinced  the  time  has  come  when  it  should  be 
uttered:  and  if  it  must  be  that  I  go  down  because  of  this 
speech,  then  let  me  go  down  linked  to  truth, — die  in  the  advo- 
cacy of  what  is  right  and  just.  This  nation  cannot  live  on  in- 
justice. '  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand/  I  say 
again  and  again." 

The  results  of  his  long  years  of  study,  internal  strife,  brood- 
ing thought,  agonized  wrestlings  with  doubt  on  the  one  side 
and  ambition  on  the  other,  was  that  he  planted  his  faith  deep 
in  a  word  of  Jesus  the  Christ,  and  was  ready  to  live  or  die  by  it. 
He  saw  that  this  was  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life  for  him 
and  for  the  nation,  and  all  expostulation  failed  to  move  him. 


POLITICAL  PROPHECY.  171 

The  speech  was  delivered  without  modification,  on  the  lYth 
of  June,  to  the  Convention  and  a  dense  throng  of  other  citizens 
from  all  parts  of  the  State.  With  the  entire,  colossal  argument 
we  have  little  to  do  here,  but  the  "  key-note"  which  startled  the 
nation  is  as  follows : 

"Gentlemen  of  the  Convention:  If  we  could  first  know 
where  we  are  and  whither  we  are  tending,  we  could  then  better 
judge  what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are  now  far  on  into 
the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the  avowed  ob- 
ject and  confident  promise  of  putting  an  end  to  slavery  agita- 
tion. Under  the  operation  of  that  policy,  that  agitation  has 
not  only  not  ceased  but  has  continually  augmented.  In  my 
opinion  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been  reached 
and  passed.  '  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.'  I 
believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently,  half  slave 
and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved ;  I  do 
not  expect  the  house  to  fall ;  but  I  do  expect  that  it  will  cease 
to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other. 
Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread 
of  it  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the  belief 
that  it  is  in  course  of  ultimate  extinction,  or  its  advocates  will 
push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the 
States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South." 

No  words  so  daring,  no  such  unequivocal  statement  of  the 
great  problem,  had  yet  been  uttered  by  any  man  of  political 
prominence  and  power. 

Mr.  Seward  had  been  visited  with  vast  abuse  for  declaring 
"  the  irrepressible  conflict"  between  freedom  and  slavery,  but 
his  boldest  utterance  had  been  philosophical  feebleness  com- 
pared to  this. 

His  work,  of  inestimable  value,  had  been  in  the  nature  of  a 
preparation  of  the  public  mind  for  the  forced  reception  of  a 
great  and  gloomy  fact  to  which  it  had  hitherto  shut  its  ears 
and  blinded  its  eyes.  Such  words  as  Lincoln  uttered  can  never 
be  recalled,  for,  being  truth,  they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life, 


172  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  they  cannot  die,  but  live  forever.  In  other  forms  and 
adaptations,  they  apply  and  will  be  applied  to  any  and  every 
question  of  human  right  and  wrong  upon  which,  in  all  the 
world,  a  people  or  nation  shall  henceforth  be  divided.  They 
will  help  all  men  to  see  and  know  that,  in  any  such  division, 
the  fighting  cannot  cease  but  must  go  on  to  an  end,  whether 
men  choose  for  themselves  that  they  will  fight  for  hell  or 
for  heaven. 

Nevertheless,  as  Lincoln  himself  said,  in  the  sublimely  cour- 
ageous words  with  which  the  great  speech  ended : 

"  The  result  is  not  doubtful.  "We  shall  not  fail, — if  we  stand 
firm  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may  accelerate  or  mis- 
takes delay  it,  but,  sooner  or  later,  the  victory  is  sure  to  come." 

From  the  Kentucky  hut  and  the  Indiana  "pole-shelter;" 
from  ignorance,  vice,  filth,  darkness,  poverty;  through  toil 
and  sorrow  and  suffering  ;  through  storms  of  heart  and  soul 
which  drove  him  mad,  the  germ  of  a  great  life  and  noble  man- 
hood had  expanded  slowly,  until  this  was  the  voice  it  could 
send  forth  to  a  tumultuous  time,  to  a  doubting,  hesitating 
party,  and  to  a  bewildered,  faint-hearted  people. 

The  immediate  result  of  the  speech  was  precisely  what  his 
friends  had  feared  and  prophesied.  All  the  more  conservative 
elements  were  horrified,  and  the  very  radicals  murmured  at  an 
impolitic  frankness  which  openly  invited  defeat  at  the  polls. 
There  is  no  question  that  it  prevented  Mr.  Lincoln's  election 
to  the  Senate  and  sent  Mr.  Douglas  there  in  his  stead,  at  the 
end  of  the  most  remarkable  personal  canvass  on  record.  They 
met  in  debates  at  prominent  points  all  over  the  State.  Every- 
where Mr.  Lincoln  proved  his  superiority  both  in  intellectual 
power  and  in  soundness  of  moral  position,  but  the  people  were 
not  yet  quite  ready  to  follow  him.  He  had  gone  on  too  far  in 
advance  of  them,  and  they  required  time  in  which  they  might 
open  their  new-born  political  eyes  and  learn  to  look  at  realities 
and  grow  and  think  a  little. 

Mr.  Lamon  relates  that,  a  day  or  two  after  the  delivery  of 


POLITICAL  PROPHECY.  173 

the  speech,  a  Dr.  Long,  unconsciously  representing  a  great 
multitude,  came  into  Lincoln's  law-office  to  free  his  mind.  He 
said: 

"  Well,  Lincoln,  that  foolish  speech  of  yours  will  kill  you — 
will  defeat  you  in  this  contest,  and  probably  for  all  offices  for 
all  time  to  come.  I  am  sorry,  sorry, — very  sorry.  I  wish  it 
was  wiped  out  of  existence.  Don't  you  wish  it,  now  ?" 

Mr.  Lincoln  dropped  the  pen  he  had  been  busy  with,  and 
turned  his  sad,  earnest,  half-contemptuous  smile  upon  the 
mourner : 

"  Well,  Doctor,  if  I  had  to  draw  a  pen  across  and  erase  my 
whole  life  from  existence,  and  I  had  one  poor  gift  or  choice 
left  as  to  what  I  should  save  from  the  wreck,  I  should  choose 
that  speech  and  leave  it  to  the  world  unerased." 

With  others  he  afterwards  argued  earnestly  the  wisdom  and 
policy  as  well  as  the  truth  of  that  speech,  both  as  to  time  and 
place,  and  most  men  of  the  party  were  shortly  able  to  agree 
with  him. 

An  important  result  of  the  joint  debates  between  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  was  that  the  latter  was  forced  into  such  explanations 
and  to  take  such  ground  before  his  own  constituents  that  he 
thereby  lost  all  hope  of  regaining  his  broken  hold  upon  the 
South.  He  was  driven  to  the  alternative  of  abandoning  his 
ambitious  design  upon  the  Presidency  or  of  splitting  his  own 
party  in  sunder.  His  subsequent  choice  of  the  latter  course 
made  possible  the  Republican  triumph  of  1860,  and  his  tem- 
porary success  in  1858  encouraged  him  to  that  determina- 
tion. 

The  popular  vote  in  November,  1858,  showed  a  numerical 
majority  of  over  four  thousand  for  the  Republican  ticket,  but 
that  did  not  carry  with  it  a  majority  of  members  of  the  Legis- 
lature. The  friends  of  Douglas  controlled  both  Houses.  If, 
in  the  heat  of  the  struggle,  Mr.  Lincoln  permitted  himself  to 
hope  for  a  different  result,  he  took  his  defeat  with  equanimity. 
He  could  not  have  more  than  dimly  dreamed  of  the  immediate 


174  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

reward  in  store  for  him,  but  he  had  done  his  duty.  He  had 
been  placed  before  the  whole  country  in  a  strong  light.  He 
had  fairly  won  a  national  reputation.  He  had  proved  himself 
such  a  leader  as  anxious  men  were  waiting  for.  Nevertheless, 
those  who  saw  him  daily  and  believed  that  they  knew  him  best 
had  but  a  faint  and  fragmentary  idea  of  the  impression  he  had 
made,  and  was  still  making,  upon  others  than  themselves.  They 
talked  about  him,  more  or  less,  during  the  winter  of  1858-9, 
and  they  severely  criticised  two  or  three  attempts  he  made  at 
"lecturing"  on  unimportant  topics.  Like  other  men,  the 
country  over,  they  were  beginning  to  discuss  the  coming  Presi- 
dential campaign  and  its  possible  candidates.  It  does  not  ap- 
pear, however,  that  a  man  among  them  all  took  occasion  to 
mention  among  these  latter  the  defeated  antagonist  of  Douglas 
in  the  recent  State  election. 

At  the  county-seat  of  Champaign  County,  in  the  Eighth  Ju- 
dicial District,  there  was  printed  at  that  time  a  weekly  news- 
paper, of  good  standing  and  circulation,  called  the  Central  Il- 
linois Gazette.  It  was  owned  and  nominally  managed  by  an 
eccentric  and  illiterate  country  doctor,  who  never  wrote  for  it. 
Its  sole  editor  and  real  manager  was  a  young  man  from  New 
York  who  had  barely  a  speaking  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, though,  like  most  of  his  neighbors,  profoundly  respecting 
and  even  enthusiastically  admiring  him. 

In  April,  1859,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  at  the  Doane  House,  in 
Champaign,  the  "  railway  half  "  of  the  county-seat,  in  attend- 
ance on  business  before  the  court.  He  had  been  to  the  post- 
office  quite  early  one  morning,  returning,  with  a  hat  half  full 
of  letters,  to  a  chair  in  the  hotel  office.  He  came  in,  absorbed, 
gloomy,  neither  speaking  to  or  even  noticing  any  one  as  he  en- 
tered. He  rested  his  feet  on  the  big  stove  in  the  middle  of  the 
room  and  began  to  open  and  read  his  letters. 

There  had  been  a  sharp  dispute  in  the  Gazette  office  the 
previous  day,  between  the  doctor  and  the  editor,  as  to  the  pre- 
cise political  course  to  be  pursued  by  that  journal.  As  the 


POLITICAL  PROPHECY.  175 

young  man  now  came  out  from  his  breakfast  in  the  hotel 
dining-room  with  his  mind  yet  full  of  the  subject  of  the  quar- 
rel, he  saw  the  well-known  face  and  form  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and 
suddenly  resolved  to  address  him  and  ask  his  advice.  But 
something  in  the  dark,  strong  face  arrested  him,  and  he  waited. 
It  was  worth  any  man's  while  to  study  such  a  face  as  that. 
Mr.  Lincoln  tore  open  a  letter  of  more  than  ordinary  length 
and  began  to  read.  It  was  closely  written  in  a  crabbed,  black 
handwriting,  but  it  must  have  contained  matter  for  thought. 
He  read  it  half  through,  dropped  it  in  his  hat  and  sat  there  as 
if  looking  at  something  a  thousand  miles  away.  His  heavy 
features,  deeply  furrowed  with  wrinkles  and  sallow  with  fa- 
tigue of  heart  and  brain,  seemed  flabby  and  lifeless  for  a  few 
moments.  Then,  and  swiftly,  as  if  the  keeper  of  the  light- 
house had  kindled  the  great  fire  within,  the  eyes  and  the  whole 
face  began  to  light  up  and  glow  with  all  the  radiance  of  the 
hidden  life  that  had  so  long  been  living  there.  The  young 
watcher  had  never  before  seen  anything  like  that  upon  any 
face  of  living  being,  and  he  reverently  forbore  to  speak.  He 
was  thrilled  and  spell-bound  by  something  of  the  force  of  a  per- 
sonality which  had  so  often  swayed  multitudes  to  the  will  of 
the  orator. 

"  The  greatest  man  I  ever  saw  or  heard  of  !"  he  exclaimed 
to  himself,  as  he  quietly  slipped  out  of  the  hotel.  In  a  few 
moments  he  was  in  his  own  office  and  the  doctor  was  there  be- 
fore him. 

"  Doctor,"  he  shouted,  "  I've  made  up  my  mind  for  whom 
we  are  going  for  President." 

"  You  don't  say !    Who  is  it  ?" 

"  Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois !" 

"  What  ?  Old  Abe  ?  Nonsense !  We  might  go  for  him 
for  Yice-President.  He'd  never  do  for  any  more'n  that. 
Seward  and  Lincoln  wouldn't  be  a  bad  ticket.  But  Old  Abe ! 
Who  put  that  into  your  head  ?" 

"  He  did.     It's  no  use,   doctor.     He's  the  man.     You've 


176  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

got  to  tend  office  to-day.      I'm  off  for  Springfield,  the  next 
train,  to  get  material  for  a  campaign-life  editorial." 

The  doctor  yielded,  as  usual.  The  young  editor  went  to 
Springfield  and  returned  with  his  material.  The  article  was 
written,  and  early  in  May  it  was  printed.  Hundreds  of  copies 
were  industriously  sent  out,  all  over  the  State,  to  be  quoted, 
commented  upon,  approved,  and  ridiculed,  and  the  work  of 
nominating  a  President,  so  far  as  Illinois  was  concerned,  had 
been  well  begun  before  the  nominee  had  been  spoken  to  upon 
the  subject.  At  the  same  time,  a  letter  from  the  same  hand, 
and  to  the  same  general  effect,  was  printed  in  a  journal  pub- 
lished in  the  city  of  New  York,  but  of  course  without  attract- 
ing especial  attention  there. 

The  fact  here  related  is  a  full  refutation  of  the  baseless  as- 
sertion that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  anything  whatever  to  do  with  the 
inception  of  what  was  strictly  a  popular  movement.  But  the 
discussion  and  comments  of  people  and  press  of  course  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  those  most  interested,  and  from  that  time 
forth,  naturally,  both  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  friends  watched 
closely  and  discussed  freely  all  indications  of  the  drift  of  pub- 
lic opinion  with  reference  to  the  coming  choice.  Echoes 
came  speedily,  from  every  direction,  repeating  the  enthusiastic 
outburst  of  the  Champaign  County  editor.  It  looked  as  if 
some  kind  of  a  tide  might  be  rising ;  but  it  was  too  early  yet 
for  reasonable  calculation.  There  were  many  other  distin- 
guished names  continually  upon  the  lips  of  men.  Hardly  a 
State  failed  of  putting  forward  one  or  more  of  its  respected 
names  in  connection  with  the  honorable  competition.  Plainly, 
a  vast  amount  of  careful  work  was  before  the  party,  in  the  na- 
ture of  judicious  sorting  and  sifting.  Ordinarily,  early  "  men- 
tion" is  sure  death  to  nomination ;  but  it  was  well  for  Mr. 
Lincoln  that  his  candidacy  began  at  so  early  a  day,  for  even 
his  enemies  and  the  crisis  itself  worked  steadily  in  his  behalf. 


TEE  RISING   TIDE.  177 


CHAPTEK  XXIV. 

THE  RISING  TIDE. 

National  Fame — The  Cooper  Institute  Speech — Sectionalism — Illinois  State 
Convention  at  Decatur — The  Rail-splitter — The  Republican  National 
Convention  at  Chicago — The  Presidential  Nomination — 1859. 

ALL  over  the  country,  and  in  every  part  of  every  section,  pop- 
ular preparations  for  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1860  began 
earlier  than  usual.  Men  of  all  parties  perceived,  more  or  less 
clearly,  that  an  unprecedented  crisis  was  at  hand  in  public  af- 
fairs. 

Mr.  Lincoln  began  to  receive  letters  from  various  persons 
who  inquired  as  to  his  views  of  different  questions.  These 
were  not  all  sent  him  with  a  friendly  purpose,  but  his  replies 
were  at  once  frank  and  judicious.  During  the  autumn  of  the 
year  1859  he  made  a  number  of  political  speeches  in  Ohio, 
and  early  in  the  winter  he  did  the  same  in  Kansas.  Every- 
where he  gave  renewed  evidences  of  the  ripening  of  his  powers 
as  a  statesman  and  orator.  His  fame  was  growing  so  fast  that 
even  his  best  friends  were  compelled  to  recognize  it.  At  last, 
a  self-appointed  committee  of  them  arranged  a  conference  with 
him,  in  a  room  of  the  State  House  at  Springfield,  to  urge  upon 
him  the  propriety  of  formally  permitting  the  use  of  his  name 
as  a  Presidential  candidate.  He  heard  them.  He  took  one 
night  to  consider  the  matter,  and  the  next  day  gave  his  consent. 
His  demeanor  throughout  the  conference  was  quiet,  modest, 
thoughtful,  and  he  expressed  strong  doubt  of  success  in  obtain- 
ing the  nomination. 

Meantime  an  unintended  movement  in  his  favor  was  made 
by  men  who  had  no  thought  of  him  as  a  rival  of  their  own  pre- 


178  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ferred  candidates.  In  October  he  had  received  an  invitation 
to  deliver  a  lecture  at  the  Cooper  Institute,  in  New  York  City. 
After  consulting  with  Mr.  Herndon,  he  consented,  on  condi- 
tion that  he  should  be 'permitted  to  speak  upon  political  ques- 
tions, setting  a  day  in  the  following  February.  This  was 
readily  agreed  to,  and  he  at  once  set  himself  diligently  to  the 
work  of  preparation. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  were  wonderfully  "  sec- 
tional" in  the  year  1859.  The  North  knew  little  of  the  South, 
and  the  South  knew  almost  nothing  of  the  North.  The  "West 
was  the  very  symbol  of  vagueness  and  uncertainty  to  the  people 
of  the  East.  The  people  of  the  West,  other  than  immigrants 
from  the  seaboard  States,  did  but  dimly  bear  in  mind  their  re- 
lations to  the  older  settlements  between  their  homes  and  the 
Atlantic. 

There  were  therefore  few  men  in  Illinois  who  could  com- 
prehend the  significance  of  the  invitation  to  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
speak  in  New  York,  or  see  how  high,  how  very  rare  a  compli- 
ment was  thereby  offered  him.  The  great  East  teemed  with 
eloquent  men, — lawyers,  scholars,  statesmen,  theologians, — and 
yet  its  chief  city  asked  to  hear  a  man  who  as  yet  had  won  no 
tangible  eminence  in  either  of  these  characters.  Except  as  a 
local  celebrity,  made  such  in  recent  political  campaigns,  it  was 
supposed  that  he  had  never  been  heard  of.  This  was  in  a 
measure  true,  for  he  had  been  felt  rather  than  heard,  and  all 
the  more  did  men  desire  to  see  and  hear  him. 

No  previous  effort  of  his  life  cost  him  so  much  hard  work 
as  did  that  Cooper  Institute  speech.  When  finished,  it  was  a 
masterly  review  of  the  history  of  the  slavery  question  from 
the  foundation  of  the  government,  with  a  clear,  bold,  states- 
manlike presentation  of  the  then  present  attitude  of  parties  and 
of  sections.  It  exhibited  a  careful  research,  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge and  understanding  of  political  movements  and  develop- 
ments, that  staggered  even  the  most  laborious  and  painstaking 
students.  It  showed  a  grasp,  a  breadth,  a  mental  training,  and 


TEE  RISING  TIDE.  179 

a  depth  of  penetration  which  compelled  the  admiration  of 
critical  scholars.  Those  who  heard  and  those  who  afterwards 
read  it  in  print  alike  filed  it  away  as  an  historical  document. 
Those  who  listened  to  its  delivery  acknowledged  with  one  voice 
that  the  country  possessed  and  had  now  discovered  one  more 
great  man  and  great  orator. 

Nothing  like  this  had  been  at  all  expected,  although  enough' 
was  already  known  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  call  together  in  Cooper 
Institute  an  audience  which  astonished  him.  The  great  hall 
was  crowded  with  the  best  citizens  of  New  York.  The  mem- 
bers of  that  throng  had  all  of  them  listened  to  many  celebrated 
speakers  and  to  what  they  deemed  great  speeches.  They  were 
cultivated,  intelligent,  critical,  but  they  were  willing  to  be 
amused,  or  even  interested,  by  a  first-class  specimen  of  Western 
"  stump  oratory."  They  knew  sufficiently  well  that  the  tall, 
ungainly,  awkward  man  in  black  who  arose  upon  the  platform 
to  be  introduced  by  William  Cullen  Bryant  had  had  no  edu- 
cational advantages.  He  was  a  coarse  fellow,  of  low  origin, 
who  had  never  been  to  college  or  moved  in  polished  society. 
He  had  n'ot  so  much  as  distinguished  himself  as  a  soldier,  office- 
holder, editor,  nor  had  he  ever  written  a  book.  It  was  said  of 
him  that  he  told  funny  stories  well,  and  that  he  had  a  strange 
faculty  for  holding  the  attention  of  a  Western  gathering  of 
rude,  illiterate  people. 

Yery  vague  indeed  were  the  notions  and  expectations  of  the 
multitude  when  the  speaker  began,  but  it  was  not  long  before 
an  unlooked-for  light  began  to  dawn  upon  them.  Slowly  the 
minds  of  all  took  in  the  idea  that  this  was  an  address,  not  to 
them  only,  but  to  the  entire  American  people. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  toilfully  prepared,  and  was  now  uttering, 
a  declaration  of  the  causes,  principles,  and  purposes  which 
underlay  the  existence  and  action,  past,  present,  and  to  come, 
of  the  Republican  party.  He  had  also  fallen  but  little  short  of 
combining  a  political  platform  with  an  "  Inaugural  Address." 

The  effect  may  be  well  expressed  in  the  words  with  which 


180  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  next  day's  issue  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  February  28, 
1860,  prefaced  its  report  of  the  speech  :  "  No  man  ever  before 
made  such  an  impression  on  his  first  appeal  to  a  New  York 
audience." 

Neither  has  any  other  man  since  then  approached  it,  for  that 
speech  stands  alone  in  the  oratorical  annals  of  the  great  city. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  further  errand  in  the  East  had  been  to  visit 
his  son  Robert,  then  a  student  at  Harvard;  but  invitations 
to  speak  at  other  points  poured  in  upon  him,  and  he  had  no 
thought  of  refusing.  Everywhere,  as  he  went,  he  took  the 
minds  of  men  and  women  captive,  and  left  behind  him  an  im- 
pression which  could  not  pass  away.  Everywhere,  also,  he  was 
himself  taking  careful  notes  of  men  and  things  and  perfecting 
his  knowledge  of  the  people  and  the  country  he  was  so  soon 
to  rule.  He  returned  to  his  home  a  man  better  and  more 
widely  known  than  nine  out  of  every  ten  who  sit  out  a  long 
term  in  the  United  States  Senate,  or  than  ninety-nine  out  of 
every  hundred  who  are  elected  governors  of  States. 

The  Republican  National  Convention  had  been  called  to 
meet  at  Chicago  on  the  16th  of  May,  1860,  and  the  Republican 
State  Convention  of  Illinois  was  held  at  Decatur  on  the  9th 
and  10th  of  the  same  month.  The  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln  re- 
solved that  the  one  should  prepare  their  candidate  for  the 
other.  They  did  not  reveal  their  plans  to  him,  but  they  laid 
them  well  and  they  carried  them  out  to  perfection. 

When  the  State  Convention  assembled  for  business,  an 
enormous  crowd  of  delegates  and  other  citizens  packed  the 
large  temporary  structure  erected  for  the  occasion,  but  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  not  upon  the  platform. 

Governor  Oglesby  arose  and  said : 

"  I  am  informed  that  a  distinguished  citizen  of  Illinois,  and 
one  whom  Illinois  will  ever  be  delighted  to  honor,  is  present ; 
and  I  wish  to  move  that  this  body  invite  him  to  a  seat  upon 
the  stand."  He  paused  a  moment,  and  then  he  added,  in  a 
loud,  clear  voice : 


THE  BISING   TIDE.  181 

"  Abraham  Lincoln !" 

The  scene  which  followed  is  indescribable  for  its  tumultuous 
enthusiasm.  No  way  could  be  made  through  the  dense,  ex- 
cited, shouting  throng,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  borne  bodily,  over 
their  heads  and  shoulders,  to  the  place  of  honor.  The  order  of 
business  went  on  for  a  while,  and  then  Governor  Oglesby  arose 
again : 

"  There  is  an  old  Democrat  outside  who  has  something  he 
wishes  to  present  to  this  convention." 

There  was  a  roar  of  assent  from  every  direction,  mingled 
with  some  few  doubts  and  objections.  Then  the  door  of  the 
"  wigwam"  swung  open,  and  a  strong  old  man  marched  in, 
shouldering  two  fence-rails  of  moderate  size  surmounted  by  a 
banner  inscribed,  in  large  letters : 

"TWO  EAILS 

FROM  A  LOT  MADE  BY  ABRAHAM  LlNCOLN  AND  JoHN  HANKS, 
IN  THE  SANGAMON  BOTTOM,  IN  THE  TEAR  1830." 

The  hearty-looking,  sunburned  bearer  was  old  John  Hanks 
himself,  and  he  had  come  to  do  his  part  in  making  his  old 
friend  President  of  the  United  States.  He  and  his  burden 
were  fitting  representatives  of  the  old  days  of  toil,  darkness, 
and  privation,  and  the  vast  throng  arose  as  one  man  to  do 
honor  to  the  striking  testimony  they  brought  with  them.  In 
an  instant  Abraham  Lincoln,  "  the  rail-splitter,"  wae  accepted 
as  the  representative  of  the  working  man  and  the  type  and 
embodiment  of  the  American  idea  of  human  freedom  and 
possible  human  elevation.  The  applause  was  deafening.  But 
it  was  something  more  than  mere  applause :  it  was  the  tem- 
pestuous outburst  of  a  tidal  wave  of  strange  and  irresistible 
enthusiasm  which  swept  from  Decatur  to  Chicago  and  thence 
over  the  whole  country. 

Silence  came  as  Mr.  Lincoln  rose  to  respond  to  the  vocifer- 
ous demand  for  a  "speech."  It  was  not  yet,  however,  the 


182  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

right  time  for  him  to  speak,  and  he  made  no  blunder.  He 
said: 

"  Gentlemen :  I  suppose  you  want  to  know  something  about 
those  things.  Well,  the  truth  is,  in  the  year  1830  John  Hanks 
and  I  did  make  some  rails,  in  the  Sangamon  bottom,  to  fence 
a  piece  of  land.  I  don't  know  whether  these  are  some  of 
those  rails  or  not.  The  fact  is,  I  don't  think  they  are  a 
credit  to  the  makers.  But  I  do  know  this :  I  made  rails  then 
and  I  think  I  could  make  better  rails  than  these  now." 

Shouts  and  laughter  accompanied  and  followed  the  few  re- 
marks of  the  "  Illinois  Rail-splitter,"  but  the  work  of  capturing 
that  convention  was  accomplished.  There  was  not  a  breath  of 
opposition,  afterwards,  to  a  resolution  that — 

"Abraham  Lincoln  is  the  first  choice  of  the  Republican 
party  of  Illinois  for  the  Presidency,  and  its'  delegates  to  the 
Chicago  Convention  are  hereby  instructed  to  use  all  honorable 
means  to  secure  his  nomination,  and  to  cast  the  vote  of  the 
State  as  a  unit  for  him." 

On  the  16th  of  the  month  the  National  Convention  of  the 
party  assembled  at  Chicago.  "With  it  came  swarms  of  the 
eager  friends  of  many  Presidential  aspirants.  The  city  was 
crowded  as  it  never  had  been  before,  and  the  excitement  was 
at  fever-heat  even  before  the  appointed  day. 

Two  days  were  consumed  in  agreeing  upon  a  party  platform 
and  in  a  vigorous  canvass  of  delegates  with  reference  to  the 
coming  ballots  for  nominations. 

The  third  day  came  and  the  balloting  began.  It  was  well 
known  beforehand  that  on  the  first  ballot  the  highest  vote 
would  be  given  to  William  H.  Seward  of  New  York,  but  no 
man  could  form  a  valuable  opinion  as  to  what  might  or  might 
not  take  place  afterwards.  Mr.  Seward's  actual  vote  was  173£, 
but  it  was  a  surprise  to  many  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  at  once 
come  next  in  rank  with  102.  The  surprise  increased  upon  the 
announcement  of  the  second  ballot,  when  Mr.  Seward's  vote 
arose  to  184£  and  Mr.  Lincoln  followed  him  with  181.  It  was 


THE  RISING   TIDE.  183 

manifest  that  the  friends  of  minor  candidates  were  breaking 
away  from  their  men  under  the  tremendous  pressure  and  ex- 
citement of  the  hour,  and  that  the  issue  lay  between  the  lead- 
ing representatives  of  the  East  and  the  West.  It  is  worthy 
•of  note  that  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  had  remarked,  some  days 
before  the  Convention,  that  Seward  or  he  would  get  the  nomi- 
nation. 

The  call  of  States  began  upon  the  third  ballot.  As  it  pro- 
ceeded votes  flew  fast  from  every  quarter,  until  it  was  known 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  231^,  only  a  vote  and  a  half  less  than  the 
required  number.  The  Convention  held  its  breath  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  then  Mr.  Cartter  of  Ohio  arose  to  change  four  of 
the  votes  of  that  State  delegation  from  Mr.  Chase  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. 

The  nomination  was  sealed,  and  the  great  "  wigwam"  shook 
with  the  excited  outburst  that  followed.  No  such  enthusiasm 
could  have  greeted  any  other  result,  for  the  fire  kindled  at 
Decatur  had  been  burning  hotter  and  hotter  every  hour,  and  it 
must  be  said  that  the  men  of  Illinois  had  scattered  the  brands 
of  it  well  and  zealously,,  Hannibal  Hamlin  of  Maine  was 
named  for  Yice-President,  and  the  Convention  shortly  ad- 
journed. 

All  through  these  proceedings  Mr.  Lincoln  remained  at 
Springfield.  He  was  continually  advised  by  his  friends  as  to 
the  course  of  events,  and  took  a  deep  though  undemonstrative 
interest  in  the  news  they  sent  him.  He  was  not  at  all  indif- 
ferent, and  made  no  vain  and  weak  pretense  of  being  so ;  but  he 
exhibited  excellent  self-control.  This  was  not  the  kind  of  ex- 
citement which  could  disturb  a  mind  so  disciplined  as  his  had 
been.  On  the  great  third  day,  when  all  was  seemingly  trem- 
bling in  the  balance,  he  chatted  with  friends,  read  dispatches, 
commented  freely  on  the  prospects  of  other  candidates,  but 
gave  utterance  to  no  opinion  as  to  his  own, — until  the  telegraphic 
announcement  of  the  result  of  the  second  ballot  was  handed 
him.  A  single  flash  of  personal  feeling  and  human  ambition 


184  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

escaped  him  then,  for,  with  familiar  reference  to  his  powerful 
rival,  he  exclaimed : 

"  I've  got  him !" 

He  was  not  thinking  of  himself  too  much,  however. 
Shortly  afterwards  came  another  message  informing  him  of 
his  nomination. 

While  the  streets  of  Springfield  rang  with  "  cheers  for  Lin- 
coln" from  men  of  all  parties,  proud  of  their  friend  and  neigh- 
bor, he  turned  quietly  away  from  their  plaudits  and  congratu- 
lations, remarking : 

"  Well,  gentlemen,  there's  a  little  short  woman  at  our  house 
who  is  probably  more  interested  in  this  dispatch  than  I  am ; 
and,  if  you  will  excuse  me,  I  will  take  it  up  and  let  her  see  it." 

On  the  following  day  the  appointed  Committee  of  the  Con- 
vention, headed  by  its  president,  arrived  in  Springfield  with 
the  formal  announcement  of  its  action.  They  found  the  man 
of  their  choice,  contrary  to  their  expectation,  sad,  gloomy, 
already  depressed  by  the  crushing  burden  they  had  come  to 
lay  upon  him.  He  received  their  address  with  great  dignity, 
replying  in  a  few  well-chosen  sentences  full  of  deep  f eeling. 
He  promised  to  answer  them  in  writing  after  a  more  careful 
consideration  of  the  resolutions  adopted  by  the  Convention. 
The  formal  acceptance,  made  the  following  day,  was  very  brief, 
but  left  nothing  to  be  asked  for  in  its  manner  or  its  substance. 

The  several  forces  which  were  to  contend  for  mastery  in  the 
political  campaign  of  1860  were  marshaled  in  a  manner  sig- 
nificant of  the  chaotic  state  to  which  all  the  old  party  organiza- 
tions had  been  reduced.  After  a  vain  effort  to  retain  its  long- 
accustomed  solidity,  the  Democratic  party  had  angrily  split  in 
twain.  What  may  be  called  its  Northern  division  nomi- 
nated Stephen  A.  Douglas  of  Illinois  for  President  and  Hers- 
chel  Y.  Johnson  of  Georgia  for  Yice-President.  The  other 
division — the  pro-slavery,  or  Southern — nominated  John  C. 
Breckinridge  of  Kentucky  for  President  and  Joseph  Lane  of 
Oregon  for  Vice-President.  The  persistent  remainder  of  the 


THE  RISING  TIDE.  185 

old  Whig  party,  after  passing  through  several  mutations  of 
name  and  searching  out  vain  excuses  for  continuance,  now  ap- 
peared for  the  last  time,  as  the  "  Constitutional  Union  Party," 
under  the  nominal  leadership  of  John  Bell  of  Tennessee,  as  its 
candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and  of  Edward  Everett  of  Mas- 
sachusetts as  a  possible  Vice-President.  The  voting  popula- 
tion of  the  country  had  therefore  an  uncommonly  wide  discre- 
tion offered  them. 


186  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

ELECTED   PRESIDENT. 

The  Great  Canvass  of  1860— The  Critical  Election— Southern  Threats  of 
Civil  War — Office-seekers  Early — A  Wise  Decision — Cabinet-making — 
Preparing  for  the  Trouble  to  Come — A  Nation  Without  a  Ruler. 

DURING  the  political  canvass  which  followed  the  Chicago 
Convention  Mr.  Lincoln  remained  at  Springfield.  It  was  a 
matter  of  manifest  propriety  that  he  should  maintain  as  much 
reserve  as  was  consistent  with  his  customary  frankness.  He 
continued  to  meet  all  men  freely  and  avoided  none  who  desired 
to  see  or  speak  with  him. 

Those  few  short  months  were  a  time  of  feverish  and  hourly 
increasing  excitement  to  the  entire  people,  and  most  of  all  to 
the  man  whom  the  clearest-minded  politicians,  North  and 
South,  himself  included,  knew  they  were  about  to  elect  as  their 
Chief  Magistrate.  He  passed  the  dense  and  burdened  days, 
therefore,  as  an  intense  student  of  all  the  present  symptoms 
and  probable  results  of  that  fierce  fermentation. 

The  collision  he  had  foreseen  and  prophesied  twenty  years 
before  was  at  hand.  The  crisis  he  had  more  publicly  formu- 
lated in  his  Bloomington  speech  was  hourly  drawing  nearer. 
Hundreds  of  Southern  orators  and  writers  plainly  declared  that 
the  election  of  Lincoln  would  precipitate  the  struggle  he  had 
foretold.  They  were  the  exponents  of  a  feeling  more  deep  and 
more  willful  than  careless  observers  knew  or  would  believe. 
Their  real  meaning  was  that  they  would  regard  such  an  elec- 
tion as  their  justification  for  themselves  precipitating  the 
struggle.  It  was  more  a  threat  than  a  warning. 

Great  pains  were  taken,  by  enemies  as  well  as  friends,  to 


ELECTED  PRESIDENT.  187 

keep  Mr.  Lincoln  well  advised  of  these  hostile  utterances  and 
of  all  known  preparations  for  such  action  as  would  fulfill 
threats.  Enough  of  such  preparation  showed  itself,  almost 
publicly,  to  indicate  its  extent.  Even  the  methods  of  its 
veiled  and  secret  operations  were  from  time  to  time  suggested. 

For  none  of  this  treasonable  agitation,  or  its  consequences, 
could  Mr.  Lincoln  hold  himself  in  any  manner  responsible.  It 
forced  upon  his  mind,  however,  the  necessity  he  was  under  of 
speedily  establishing  his  own  relations  to  public  affairs  and  to 
the  future  of  the  country. 

The  popular  vote  was  given  on  the  6th  of  November,  with 
a  result  which  showed  that  if  the  adversaries  of  the  Kepublican 
party  could  have  united  upon  any  one  candidate  they  would 
have  elected  him ;  but  the  same  was  also  true  of  each  of  the 
four  parties.  The  Lincoln  electoral  tickets  received  an  aggre- 
gate of  1,857,610  votes;  those  of  Mr.  Douglas,  1,291,574; 
those  of  Mr.  Bell,  646,124  ;  those  of  Mr.  Breckinridge,  850,082. 
The  popular  majority  against  Mr.  Lincoln,  if  it  could  have 
been  so  counted,  was  930,170 ;  but  would,  by  a  like  reckoning, 
have  been  much  larger  against  either  of  the  others. 

When  the  Electoral  Colleges  of  the  several  States  came 
together  and  performed  their  official  duties,  Mr.  Lincoln  re- 
ceived 180  votes;  Mr.  Breckinridge,  72;  Mr.  Bell,  30;  Mr. 
Douglas,  12.  That,  however,  was  but  the  formal  declaration 
of  a  result  which  was  already  known  to  the  whole  country. 

Hardly  was  the  popular  vote  counted,  on  the  6th  of  Novem- 
ber, before  the  current  of  office-seekers  and  other  political 
pilgrims  to  Springfield  swelled  rapidly  to  a  sort  of  flood,  and 
an  important  part  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Presidential  powers  and 
perplexities  at  once  demanded  his  attention. 

It  was  popularly  taken  for  granted,  at  the  first,  that  the  in- 
cumbents of  all  federal  offices  would  presently  be  removed 
and  that  their  places  would  be  filled  by  new  men,  selected 
from  the  victorious  party.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  thinking  of 
this.  He  understood  the  situation  and  the  strength  it  brought 


188  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

to  Mm.  No  other  President  ever  had  at  Ms  disposal  more 
than  a  fraction  of  the  appointing  power,  for  good  or  evil, 
which  would  be  his.  He  could  hardly  have  had  a  vision,  how- 
ever, of  the  multitudinous  offices  afterwards  to  be  created  and 
added. 

Here  was,  therefore,  the  opportunity  for  an  exhibition  of 
broad  and  courageous  statesmanship.  He  plainly  saw  that  the 
administration  soon  to  fall  into  his  hands  would  need  all  the 
support  it  could  by  any  means  obtain.  He  saw  that  he  could 
not  assume  the  position  of  the  paymaster  of  a  greedy  party  if 
he  would  long  remain  the  ruler  of  a  nation.  It  was  not  many 
days  before  he  was  reported,  and  truly,  to  have  declared  his 
intention  of  appointing  to  official  positions  Democrats  as  well 
.as  Republicans,  and  of  retaining  faithful  and  capable  public 
servants  wherever  possible.  There  was  a  groan  of  dismay  and 
wrath  among  the  office-seekers,  but  subsequent  developments 
proved  that  the  President-elect  was  prepared  to  stand  firmly 
by  his  wise  and  just  decision. 

As  a  sort  of  corollary  of  this,  it  was  also  made  to  be  under- 
stood that  Mr.  Lincoln  regarded  the  federal  appointments  at  his 
disposal  as  in  the  nature  of  a  public  trust,  and  not  at  all  as  his 
private  property  or  to  be  apportioned  among  his  friends,  rela- 
tives, or  personal  adherents.  There  was  to  be  little  advantage 
to  any  man  in  the  fact  that  he  had  known  Mr.  Lincoln  for 
many  years ;  or  had  exchanged  small  favors  with  him ;  or  em- 
ployed him  in  law-business ;  or  said  "  Good-morning"  to  him, 
daily. 

This  was  terribly  unexpected,  and  there  were  some  hundreds 
who  could  never  afterwards  see  that  he  had  not  been  ungrate- 
ful, they  could  hardly  say  for  what.  Not  a  few  declared  him 
unmindful  of  his  most  sacred  obligations — to  themselves. 

The  great  mass  of  tax-payers  and  other  citizens,  for  whose 
uses  the  offices  were  created  and  their  duties  performed,  were 
all  the  better  satisfied.  At  the  same  time,  the  sting  of  defeat 
rankled  less  dangerously  in  the  hearts  of  some  hundreds  of 


ELECTED  PRESIDENT.  189 

thousands  of  people,  whose  good  will  was  essential  to  the  sta- 
bility of  what  was,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  new  govern- 
ment. 

It  was  from  the  first  manifest  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would  have 
peculiar  difficulty  in  the  formation  of  his  Cabinet.  He  was 
busy  with  that  duty  even  before  election-day.  He  would 
gladly  have  obtained  the  services  of  some  well-known  repre- 
sentative of  the  declared  Union-loving  element  at  the  South, 
but  no  such  man  could  be  found.  There  was  not  one  of  suffi- 
cient prominence  who  loved  the  Union  well  enough  to  help  an 
Abolition  President  to  preserve  it.  Every  day  that  came 
brought  with  it  something  to  render  the  search  more  hopeless. 
It  was  therefore  necessary  to  confine  the  selections  made  at 
first  to  the  narrow  circle  of  the  chiefs  of  the  Republican  party. 
A  majority  of  the  Cabinet,  when  at  last  it  was  completed,  were 
men  who  had  received  votes  as  candidates  for  nomination  in 
the  Chicago  Convention.  The  man  who  called  them  around 
him  had  risen  above  all  jealousies,  all  rivalries,  all  selfish  con- 
siderations. The  settlement  of  this  important  matter  was  not 
finished  until  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  arrival  in  Washington,  but 
enough  had  been  done  to  assure  him  of  the  active  co-operation 
of  the  strong  men  of  his  own  political  faith. 

Perceiving  how  rapid  was  and  would  be  the  unification  of 
the  elements  with  which  the  nation  was  to  struggle  for  its 
lif  e,  it  was  the  part  of  a  sound  and  wise  statesmanship  to  con- 
solidate, with  all  possible  speed,  the  power  which  was  to  meet 
the  now  inevitable  shock  of  battle.  The  difficulties  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  position  at  that  time  have  been  but  little  understood. 
The  majority  of  those  who  have  written  about  them  have 
strangely  taken  it  for  granted  that  he  was  in  a  manner  ignor- 
ant of  the  course  of  events.  They  have  regarded  him  as  being 
as  much  taken  by  surprise  by  each  successive  development  as 
might  be  any  private  citizen  who  puzzled  over  the  news 
brought  to  him,  correctly  or  incorrectly,  by  his  favorite  news- 
paper. 


190  ABRAHAM  LTNCOLN. 

On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Lincoln's  preparatory  education  from 
childhood,  supplemented  now  through  a  thousand  channels  of 
information,  public  and  private,  placed  him  beyond  and  above 
the  possibility  of  a  surprise. 

There  was  an  absorbing  problem  constantly  before  him  now, 
and  his  every  act  and  word  had  to  be  weighed  with  reference 
to  the  danger  of  an  adverse,  because  premature,  solution.  It 
was,  simply  stated,  whether  the  surely  coming  storm  could 
be  delayed  until  the  new  government  should  be  placed  in 
possession  of  the  national  capital,  and  that  also  with  the 
nominal  acquiescence  of  the  government  which  was  passing 
away;  for  four  months  had  yet  to  elapse  between  Novem- 
ber of  the  election  and  March  of  the  inauguration,  and  in 
four  months  what  might  not  happen !  Considering  what 
the  former  government  had  been  in  its  nature,  plans,  pur- 
poses, and  subserviencies,  the  best  interests  of  the  whole 
country  were  served  by  the  fact  that  for  the  time  being 
there  was  no  President  at  Washington,  and  that  the  Disunion 
leaders  were  acting  for  themselves  upon  that  well-understood 
hypothesis.  Mr.  Buchanan,  the  nominal  President,  weak,  va- 
cillating, out  of  date,  groped  blindly  around  among  the  jarring 
factions  of  his  kaleidoscopic  Cabinet,  while  its  traitors  and  per- 
jured conspirators  were  begging  their  more  hot-headed  confed- 
erates in  the  cotton  States  not  to  spoil  their  vile  work  for  them 
by  over-haste.  At  the  same  time,  the  loyal  members  of  the 
same  remarkable  junto  of  "  constitutional  advisers"  were  strug- 
gling manfully  to  keep  in  hand  something  in  the  outward  sem- 
blance of  a  "  TJnion"  to  hand  over  to  the  man  whom  the  people 
had  selected  to  take  the  control  of  it.  How  nearly  they  came 
to  an  utter  failure  was  well  known  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  from  day 
to  day.  The  gloom  deepened  around  him  and  within  him,  un- 
til his  best  friends  could  but  see  the  shadows  on  his  face,  the 
circles  under  his  eyes,  the  intensity  of  the  sadness  in  which  he 
had  been  called  to  make  his  dwelling-place.  He  himself  was 
aware  of  this  external  effect  and  saw  a  danger  in  it.  Lest  it 


ELECTED  PRESIDENT.  191 

should  influence  unfavorably  the  spirits  and  courage  of  those 
about  him,  and  go  out  through  them  in  widening  ripples  of 
despondency,  he  more  frequently  than  ever  now  assumed  an  out- 
ward air  of  cheerful  jocularity.  It  served  both  for  a  convenient 
and  useful  mask  and  for  a  genuine  relief.  Behind  it  he  studied 
the  chaotic  Unionism  slowly  forming  and  moving  into  activity 
at  the  North,  and  the  much  more  rapidly  developing  Kebellion 
at  the  South.  ~No  other  fact  of  necessary  statesmanship  was 
plainer  than  this :  for  the  creation  of  a  strong,  steady,  and  per- 
manently trustworthy  public  opinion  at  the  North,  the  South 
must  be  permitted  to  put  itself  openly,  manifestly,  outrage- 
ously in  the  wrong  with  reference  to  the  central  government. 
There  was  no  doubt  that  it  would  shortly  do  so  under  the  fos- 
tering care  of  Mr.  Buchanan  and  his  Cabinet.  A  strong-minded 
man  in  the  executive  chair  would  surely  have  given  the  plot- 
ters of  secession  some  ghostly  shadow  of  an  excuse  for  violent 
measures.  As  it  was  and  as  it  continued  to  be,  the  savage 
brutality  of  their  successive  acts  remains  to  be  recorded  as  with- 
out any  other  palliation  than  the  presumption  of  their  fellow- 
citizens  in  electing  a  President  openly  hostile  to  the  purchase 
and  sale  of  human  beings. 


192  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK  XXYI. 

CASUS   BELLI. 

Secession  Activities — Lincoln's  Policy — In  a  Trying  Position— South  Carol- 
ina Takes  the  Lead — The  Confederate  States  of  America— Traitors  in 
Congress — Capture  of  United  States  Forts  and  Forces — A  Campaign 
of  Statesmanship — Vain  Premonitions — A  Last  Meeting. 

THAT  the  more  advanced  and  determined  secessionists  were 
prepared  to  regard  the  triumph  of  the  Republican  party  and 
the  election  of  Abraham  Lincoln  as  an  ample  justification  of 
anything  they  might  choose  to  do,  had  already  been  openly  de- 
clared in  numberless  unofficial  utterances. 

The  extreme  view  held  by  so  many  found  a  more  effective 
if  not  a  more  definite  expression  in  a  circular  letter  sent  by 
Governor  Gist  of  South  Carolina  to  the  governors  of  the  other 
"  cotton  States"  on  the  5th  of  October,  1860.  The  governors 
of  the  slave  States  subsequently  known  as  "border  States" 
were  not  supposed  to  be  yet  prepared  to  return  a  favorable  re- 
sponse, and  were  therefore  not  appealed  to.  The  letter  was  an 
invitation  to  concerted  and  allied  action  in  case  the  November 
election  should  result  as  was  expected,  and  its  language  requires 
no  explanation : 

"  If  a  single  State  secedes,  we  will  follow  her.  If  no  other 
State  takes  the  lead,  South  Carolina  will  secede  (in  my  opinion) 
alone,  if  she  has  any  assurance  that  she  will  soon  be  followed 
by  another  or  other  States ;  otherwise  it  is  doubtful." 

The  answers,  of  different  dates,  varied  in  character  and  not 
all  favorable,  were  probably  all  in  Governor  Gist's  hands  on  or 
before  election-day.  That  of  the  Governor  of  Georgia  con- 
tained a  very  significant  and  important  declaration.  He  said 
that,  in  his  opinion,  the  people  of  Georgia  would  "  wait  for 


CA8U8  BELLI.  193 

some  overt  act"  from  the  Lincoln  government.  It  was  not  at 
all  necessary  to  inform  the  secession  conspirators  that  an 
"  overt  act"  of  their  own  would  answer  their  purposes  equally 
as  well.  If  they  had  awaited  a  sufficient  provocation  from  the 
wise,  watchful,  patriotic  statesman  who  was  then  studying 
their  course  so  carefully  at  Springfield,  their  conspiracy  would 
have  died  of  old  age  upon  their  hands.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  made 
up  his  mind  and  determined  his  policy  as  to  that  point,  and 
he  afterwards  took  every  opportunity  of  publicly  so  saying. 

The  circular  letter  was  "secret,"  but  the  "message''  of 
Governor  Gist  to  the  Legislature  of  South  Carolina,  Novem- 
ber 5, 1860  (published  on  the  day  preceding  the  general  election- 
day),  was  an  all-sufficient  public  warning.  He  advised  the 
assembling  of  a  State  Convention  and  the  purchase  of  arms, 
and  other  war-material.  From  this  date,  if  not  from  an. 
earlier  day,  Mr.  Lincoln  was  entitled  to  consider  a  war  as  actu- 
ally begun,  and  to  guide  himself  accordingly.  Upon  what  he 
might  say  or  do,  or  leave  unsaid  and  undone,  would  manifestly 
depend,  in  great  measure,  the  character  and  results  of  the  now- 
inevitable  hostilities.  He  was  already  burdened  with  the  deli- 
cate task  of  so  directing  the  moral  forces  he  represented,  and 
over  which  he  exercised  an  increasing  control,  that  they  should 
not  too  soon  assume  an  aggressive  attitude  at  any  point.  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  overestimate  the  tact  and  patience  with 
which  he  successfully  accomplished  this  first  duty  and  victory 
of  his  administration. 

The  war-spirit  of  the  South  was  most  intense  in  South 
Carolina,  but  was  there  focalized  rather  than  localized.  The 
daily  energy  displayed  by  the  people  of  that  State  in  their 
open  preparations  for  bloodshed  presented  an  "  object-lesson" 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  and  a  few  other  men  comprehended  per- 
fectly. At  the  same  time,  the  conservative  element  at  the 
South  very  sincerely  underestimated  the  determination  of  their 
neighbors,  and  the  great  mass  of  the  Northern  people  refused 
to  regard  the  matter  as  anything  more  serious  than  an  uncom- 


194  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

monly  absurd  outburst  of  bluster  and  parade.  The  election 
took  place,  and  resulted  as  has  been  stated,  in  the  election  of 
Mr.  Lincoln. 

The  State  Convention  of  South  Carolina,  summoned  by  the 
Act  of  the  Legislature  called  for  in  the  message  of  Governor 
Gist,  was  chosen  on  the  6th  of  December.  It  met  at  Columbia, 
the  capital  of  the  State,  adjourned  to  Charleston,  and  almost 
immediately,  December  20,  adopted  an  "  Ordinance  of  Seces- 
sion," whereby  it  pretended  to  sever  the  bond  between  South 
Carolina  and  the  Union,  and  to  terminate  all  right,  power,  and 
authority  of  the  general  government  within  the  limits  of  the 
State. 

With  sundry  variations  in  the  manner,  form,  and  declared 
causes  and  purposes  of  their  alleged  going  out,  the  other  "  cot- 
ton States"  followed.  Mississippi  "  seceded  "  January  9, 1861 ; 
Florida,  January  10 ;  Alabama,  January  11 ;  Georgia,  Janu- 
ary 19  ;  Louisiana,  January  26 ;  and  Texas  on  the  1st  of  Feb- 
ruary. 

It  was  sure  to  follow  that  these  States  would  league  them- 
selves together  in  a  bond  of  some  kind,  as  suggested  in  the 
secret  circular  letter  of  Governor  Gist. 

Their  representatives  at  Washington,  in  House  and  Senate, 
in  a  paper  signed  by  about  half  their  number,  advised  that 
such  action  should  be  taken  promptly.  These  and  other  gen- 
tlemen afterwards  held  seats  and  exercised  Federal  legislative 
functions,  to  hold  and  exercise  which  was  ludicrously  as  well 
as  criminally  illegal  if  the  several  secession  ordinances  were  of 
any  binding  or  effective  power.  The  document  itself  was  ac- 
tually made  public,  as  a  preparatory  step,  some  days  prior  to 
the  secession  of  South  Carolina.  It  did  but  embody,  for  speci- 
fic uses,  the  matter  and  manner  of  a  vast  correspondence  both 
public  and  private. 

Pursuing  the  plan  laid  down  for  them,  the  several  seceded 
States  appointed  delegates  to  a  species  of  inter-State  conven- 
tion, to  be  held  at  Montgomery,  Alabama.  These  delegates 


CAS  US  BELLI.  195 

met  in  that  city  on  the  4th  of  February.  So  well  were  they 
drilled  beforehand  in  the  task  allotted  them,  that  on  the  8th 
of  that  month  they  announced  to  the  world  a  provisional 
government,  under  the  name  of  "  The  Confederate  States  of 
America." 

Before  that  joint  and  formal  action  could  be  taken,  much 
and  very  important  separate  and  local  rebellion  had  been  vigor- 
ously transacted.  Even  before  adopting  her  own  Ordinance  of 
Secession,  the  disunionists  who  acted  as  the  State  of  South 
Carolina  had  determined  upon  the  early  capture  of  the  forts  in 
Charleston  harbor,  which  were  the  specific  property  of  the 
United  States  Government.  These  were  Castle  Pinckney,  a 
small  affair  near  the  city  and  of  no  importance ;  Fort  Moultrie, 
a  larger  structure,  on  Sullivan's  Island,  occupied  by  about  one 
company  of  United  States  regular  troops ;  and,  the  most  im- 
portant of  all,  as  commanding  the  approaches  from  the  sea, 
Fort  Sumter,  a  well-built  and,  if  properly  manned  and  pro- 
visioned, all  but  impregnable  fortress  on  a  natural  shoal  raised 
to  an  artificial  island,  near  the  harbor-mouth. 

So  rapid  and  so  public  were  the  preparations  for  the  seizure 
of  these  forts  that  Major  Anderson,  the  officer  in  command  of 
Fort  Moultrie,  found  himself  compelled  to  transfer  his  small 
force,  with  such  stores  as  he  could  easily  move,  to  Fort  Sumter, 
this  being  his  sole  tenable  defense.  He  did  so  secretly,  on  the 
night  of  December  26,  only  six  days  after  the  formal  act  of 
secession  of  the  State.  From  that  day  forward  Fort  Sumter 
was  as  regularly  and  actively  besieged  as  was  ever  any  other 
fortification  in  any  other  war. 

On  the  morning  of  January  9,  the  steamer  "Star  of  the 
West,"  carrying  the  national  flag  and  bearing  needed  supplies 
to  Fort  Sumter,  was  fired  upon  and  driven  back  to  sea  by  the 
rebel  batteries  besieging  Major  Anderson  and  his  forlorn  squad. 

Nearly  similar  was  the  subsequent  course  of  events  at  Pen- 
sacola,  Florida.  Armed  forces  of  the  incipient  rebellion  com- 
pelled the  surrender  of  the  Pensacola  Navy  Yard.  Lieutenant 


196  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Slemmer,  with  forty-six  men  of  the  regular  army  and  thirty 
seamen  from  the  Navy  Yard,  was  obliged  to  abandon  Forts 
Barrancas  and  McRee,  on  the  mainland,  and  occupy  Fort  Pick- 
ens,  on  Santa  Rosa  Island,  at  the  harbor-entrance. 

On  February  18,  General  Twiggs,  commanding  the  United 
States  troops  in  Texas — but  himself  a  traitor — surrendered  to 
an  armed  force  of  rebels  the  national  forts,  military  posts,  and 
property  in  that  State,  and  made  preparations  for  an  evacua- 
tion. 

There  were  numberless  minor  acts  of  open  hostility,  but  the 
recital  of  these  is  enough  to  show  that  the  War  of  the  Rebel- 
lion had  been  in  active  prosecution  on  the  part  of  the  South, 
with  continual  and  important  military  successes  won  for  them, 
during  three  full  months  before  Mr.  Lincoln  could,  on  the  4th 
of  March,  assume  the  nominal  direction  of  public  affairs. 

Through  all  that  time  nothing  whatever  of  a  warlike  nature 
was  done  by  the  Federal  government,  beyond  some  dilatory 
and  faint-hearted  attempts  to  send  to  its  servants,  shut  up  in 
Southern  forts,  reasonable  supplies  of  food. 

The  War  Office,  under  the  charge  of  the  traitor  Floyd,  up 
to  the  day  of  his  resignation,  December  31,  was  administered 
wholly  in  the  interests  of  the  conspiracy.  The  appointment 
of  Mr.  Holt  as  his  successor  secured  as  great  a  change  as  was 
possible,  with  President  Buchanan  limply  sitting  in  the  way 
of  all  patriotic  and  especially  in  the  way  of  all  manly  and  cour- 
ageous action. 

The  services  of  the  outgoing  President  were  indeed  uninten- 
tionally great,  for  they  prevented  the  doing  of  any  act  to  mar 
or  interfere  with  the  effect  of  the  policy  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  latter  fully  grasped  the  situation  from  hour  to  hour. 
He  well  understood  that  an  unwise  word  or  act  of  his,  particu- 
larly any  utterance  which  could  be  construed  as  a  threat  of 
coercion  or  an  expression  of  bitter  feeling  or  even  of  just  in- 
dignation, would  be  equivalent  to  a  fatal  military  disaster. 
There  was  a  vast  mass  of  human  tinder  in  existence,  so  situated 


CAS  US  BELLI.  197 

as  to  be  pretty  sure  to  burn  for  the  side  which  should  succeed 
in  setting  it  on  fire.  It  was  yet  an  open  question  how  far  the 
conspirators  would  succeed  in  carrying  with  them  the  non-cot- 
ton-growing slave  States. 

An  error  of  judgment  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Lincoln ;  an  out- 
burst of  passion,  of  impatience,  or  of  partisanship  during  the 
gloomy  days  of  that  long  watchfulness  and  self-restraint,  or 
even  during  the  first  few  weeks  of  his  legal  term  of  office, 
would  have  lost  to  the  Union  at  the  outset  the  States  of  Mis- 
souri, Kentucky,  Maryland,  Delaware,  the  area  which  soon 
afterwards  became  "West  Virginia ;  and  with  these  as  depend- 
encies would  also  have  been  lost,  at  least  temporarily,  Kansas, 
Southern  Illinois,  the  control  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  the 
military  frontier  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Potomac. 

This  was  the  first  campaign  of  the  civil  war,  and  its  vast  re- 
sults were  won  by  a  wise,  firm  statesmanship.  They  were  won 
before  the  reorganized  nation  had  a  regiment  in  the  field,  and 
while  its  real  Commander-in-Chief  was  living  in  a  two-story 
frame-house  at  Springfield,  in  the  State  of  Illinois. 

There  was  a  constant  and  at  times  a  vehement  pressure 
brought  to  bear  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  by  some  of  his  more  fiery- 
spirited  political  associates.  He  was  urged  to  abandon  his  reti- 
cence and  to  make  some  public  appeal  that  should  "  fire  the 
Northern  heart"  as  the  heart  of  the  South  was  firing,  but  he 
was  deaf  to  all  such  urgency.  He  was  not  unready,  indeed, 
with  some  apt  and  telling  story  with  which  to  turn  the  subject 
and  blind  and  cover  his  actual  perception  and  purpose. 

In  the  month  of  February,  1861,  as  a  last  preparation  for  his 
departure  from  Illinois,  Mr.  Lincoln  paid  a  visit  to  his  relatives 
in  Coles  County.  He  talked  with  old  friends  and  neighbors ; 
visited  familiar  scenes ;  stood  for  a  moment  by  the  grave  of 
his  father.  More  than  all,  he  paid  a  visit  of  respect  and  affec- 
tion to  his  now  aged  step-mother  to  whom  he  was  so  deeply 
indebted.  He  spoke  of  her  to  friends  who  were  with  him  in 
terms  of  strong  and  tender  f  eeling.  He  treated  her  with  aH 


198  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  devoted  kindness  of  a  son.  The  parting  between  them, 
writes  Mr.  Lamon,  on  the  authority  of  persons  present,  was 
very  touching.  She  embraced  him  with  deep  emotion,  and 
said  she  was  sure  she  should  never  see  him  again,  for  she  felt 
sure  that  his  enemies  would  assassinate  him.  He  replied : 

"No,  no,  mamma,  they  will  not  do  that.  Trust  in  the 
Lord  and  all  will  be  well.  We  shall  see  each  other  again." 

He  himself  was  deeply  affected,  but  he  was  sincere  in  his 
rejection  of  her  motherly  warning.  Only  a  few  days  later  he 
could  with  difficulty  be  brought  to  acquiesce  in  the  precautions 
insisted  upon  by  Mr.  Seward  and  other  friends  to  avoid  a  well- 
authenticated  plot  for  his  murder  on  the  way  to  Washington. 
Later  still,  when  threatening  letters  were  almost  daily  arriving 
at  the  Executive  Mansion,  the  private  secretary  in  charge  of 
the  President's  mail  was  instructed  to  destroy  all  such  missives 
at  once  and  never  to  show  them  to  Mr.  Lincoln  or  to  mention 
to  others  the  fact  of  their  reception. 

He  was  justified  in  this,  for  the  assassins,  who  at  last  added 
brute  courage  to  their  senseless  hatred,  did  not  send  their  in- 
tended victim  any  written  warning.  The  threatening  letters 
were  but  the  cowardly  expression  of  a  bitterness  which  had  no 
heart  to  go  further. 

Among  the  crowds  who  flocked  to  see  Mr.  Lincoln  during 
this  brief  visit  to  the  scene  of  some  of  his  early  experiences 
was  old  Hannah  Armstrong.  She  also  said  to  him  that  she 
should  never  see  him  again  ;  that  something  told  her  so.  They 
would  kill  him.  He  only  smiled  and  said  to  her  : 

"  Hannah,  if  they  do  kill  me,  I  shall  never  die  another  death." 

The  forebodings  which  were  really  weighing  upon  him  did 
not  relate  to  himself,  nor  could  any  merely  personal  considera- 
tion have  induced  him  to  postpone  for  an  hour  the  perform- 
ance of  a  known  duty. 

The  time  was  drawing  near  for  his  departure  from  the  home 
he  was  never  to  see  again.  It  was  a  plain,  respectable-looking 
wooden  dwelling,  of  two  stories,  and  he  had  made  no  attempt 


CASU8  BELLI.  199 

to  beautify  it.  His  law-office  was  a  dusty,  littered,  carelessly 
kept  place.  Yet  in  the  home  and  in  the  office  he  had  thought 
and  suffered  much,  and  his  heart  and  brain,  in  all  their  patience 
and  growth,  were  linked  to  every  commonplace  feature  of 
either.  He  asked  Mr.  Herndon  as  a  favor,  after  settling  their 
partnership  affairs,  not  to  take  down  the  old  sign  of  "  Lincoln 
&  Herndon"  for  at  least  four  years.  He  had  a  hope  or  thought, 
however  faint,  that  perhaps  the  days  of  its  usefulness  might 
return.  They  seemed  almost  happy  days,  in  comparison  with 
those  to  which  he  well  knew  he  was  going  forward.  His  per- 
ception of  the  true  nature  of  these  has  many  witnesses.  Men 
who  remember  how  he  looked  during  those  last  few  weeks  be- 
fore his  departure  for  Washington  invariably  dwell  upon  his 
weary,  sad,  haggard,  woe-struck  face  and  his  bent  and  burdened 
form.  There  were  darker  circles  under  his  eyes,  and  the  far- 
away, indwelling  look,  so  noticeable  in  some  of  his  portraits, 
had  grown  deeper,  gloomier  than  ever. 

What  is  known  as  "  happiness"  had  been  denied  him  in  his 
home  relations — faithful,  devoted,  loving  as  his  wife  assuredly 
was,  and  utterly  true  to  her  as  was  he  himself.  The  one  love 
which  can  insure  the  highest  married  happiness  had  come 
to  him  once,  and  it  had  been  buried,  years  and  years  ago,  in 
a  grave  on  the  bank  of  the  Sangamon.  No  breath  of  scandal 
ever  assailed  the  purity  of  his  domestic  life.  ~No  smallest 
stain  blotted  the  clear  record  of  his  integrity.  Of  all  the 
citizens  of  Springfield,  he  was  the  best  known,  most  highly 
honored,  best  beloved.  But  those  treasures  of  human  life 
which  were  as  daily  bread  to  the  men  and  women  who  loved 
and  honored  him  were  impossible  possessions  to  the  man 
whose  merry  jokes  they  were  so  fond  of  repeating,  and  for 
whom  they  and  others  invented  such  a  wealth  of  varied  humor 
over  and  above  all  that  he  ever  uttered. 

Much  has  been  said  and  written  to  prove  that,  at  this  partic- 
ular time,  he  permitted  himself  to  entertain  forebodings  and 
f  oreshadowings  of  the  violent  death  which  was  to  come  to  him. 


200  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

It  is  as  if  a  vague  effort  were  made  to  account  in  some  such 
stupid  way  for  his  access  of  sadness.  Such  premonitions  come, 
as  all  men  know,  whether  or  not  they  are  afterwards  fulfilled. 
If  verified,  then  superstition  recalls  them  and  points  theatri- 
cally to  the  grim  fulfillment.  If  not,  then  skepticism,  with 
equal  pertinence,  forgets  them,  or  gleefully  mocks  at  a  false 
prophecy.  The  shadow  upon  Lincoln's  life  was  not  cast  before 
any  such  inadequate  specter  as  the  wonder-seekers  have  de- 
scribed, but  by  the  coming  agony  of  a  great  people.  For  long- 
years  he  had  been  reading  the  signs  of  the  times.  He  under- 
stood better  than  other  men  the  meaning  of  the  black  portents 
on  the  political  sky.  They  were  to  him  full  of  blood,  and  they 
were  dark  with  the  horrible  suffering  of  millions.  Under  and 
in  face  of  all,  the  responsibility  had  been  laid  upon  him  of 
leading  his  people  forward  into  the  day  of  their  trial  and  into 
the  measureless  woe  before  them.  He  had  been  carefully 
trained  and  developed  in  the  providence  of  God  for  the  as- 
sumption and  bearing  of  that  very  burden ;  but  all  his  training, 
while  giving  him  the  power  to  bear  it,  gave  him  no  power  to 
cast  off  any  ounce  of  its  crushing  weight. 


LIFE   MASK   OF   LINCOLN. 
Taken  by  the  Sculptor,  Vokes,  in  the  year  1860. 


PRESIDENT.  201 


CHAPTEE   XXYII. 

PRESIDENT. 

Speaking  to  the  Nation — Diplomacy — Journey  to  Washington — In  the 
Enemy's  Country — The  District  of  Columbia  Militia — The  Flood  of 
Office-seekers — The  Inauguration — The  Address — The  True  Meaning 
of  Secession — March,  1861. 

MR.  LINCOLN'S  term  of  office  as  President  of  the  United 
States  was  to  begin  on  the  4th  of  March,  1861,  but  he  deter- 
mined to  leave  Springfield  on  the  llth  of  February. 

The  policy  he  was  pursuing  required  that  he  should  be  seen 
and  heard  and  more  perfectly  understood  by  the  people.  It 
was  needful  that  his  proceeding  to  Washington  should  be  made 
under  the  concentrated  watching  of  both  friends  and  enemies. 

So  he  decided  and  so  he  went.  The  feverish  anxieties  of 
millions  attended  every  step  of  his  journey,  and  the  hearts  of 
men  grew  hourly  better  prepared  to  sustain  him  after  his  ar- 
rival at  the  seat  of  government. 

Such  preparations  for  war  as  had  yet  been  made  at  the 
North  bore  no  comparison  to  those  of  the  South.  It  was  the 
18th  of  February  before  even  such  a  State  as  Massachusetts 
passed  an  Act  to  increase  the  State  militia,  and  tendering  men 
and  money  to  the  general  government  for  the  maintenance  of 
the  national  authority.  The  great  State  of  Pennsylvania  did 
not  take  similar  action  until  April  9th,  and  the  State  Legisla- 
ture of  New  York  passed  its  dilatory  "  war  bill "  on  the  lYth 
of  that  month.  A  great  deal  was  doing,  in  a  desultory  and  ill- 
directed  way,  by  patriotic  individuals,  but  it  was  not  well  that 
the  zeal  of  even  these  should  be  so  stimulated  that  their  ac- 
tivity should  endanger  the  diplomatic  campaign  for  the  mill- 


202  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

tary  possession  of  the  border  slave-States,  or  injuriously  affect 
the  sluggish  and  bewildered  "  public  opinion"  of  important 
elements  all  over  the  North. 

At  different  places  on  his  road  to  Washington  Mr.  Lincoln 
made  brief  offhand  speeches  to  the  crowds  which  gathered  to 
meet  him,  and  to  reply  to  various  addresses  more  or  less  patri- 
otic. Every  one  of  these,  however  informal  and  apparently 
devoid  of  special  effort,  will  bear  a  careful  analysis  with  refer- 
ence to  their  intended  effect,  as  that  can  now  be  understood. 

The  manner  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  departure  from  Springfield 
expressed  with  honest  unreserve  his  thoughts,  feelings,  and  the 
simple  purity  of  his  aspirations.  None  the  less  did  it  clearly 
sound  the  key-note  of  all  his  subsequent  official  conduct  and 
utterances.  Seldom,  indeed,  have  words  so  few  and  homely 
appealed  so  powerfully  to  the  hearts  of  such  a  mighty  multi- 
tude as  in  reality  listened  to  his  farewell  speech  to  his  neigh- 
bors. 

The  railway-train  was  nearly  ready  to  bear  him  away,  and  a 
crowd  had  gathered  to  see  it  start.  The  rain  was  falling  fast 
from  a  darkened  sky,  and  the  misty  atmosphere  suited  well  the 
gloomy  feeling  which  replaced  enthusiasm  in  the  minds  of  the 
waiting  assembly.  Mr.  Lincoln  came  out  upon  the  platform 
of  the  rear  car,  standing  in  silence  for  a  moment,  bareheaded, 
in  the  rain.  There  were  tears  in  his  voice  when  he  began  to 
speak,  but  the  husMness  departed  as  he  went  on  and  his  tones 
grew  clear  and  strong,  though  tremulous  with  emotion.  He 
said: 

"  Friends :  No  one  who  has  never  been  placed  in  a  like  posi- 
tion can  understand  my  feelings  at  this  hour, — nor  the  oppres- 
sive sadness  I  feel  at  this  parting.  For  more  than  a  quarter  of 
a  century  I  have  lived  among  you,  and  during  all  that  time  I 
have  received  nothing  but  kindness  at  your  hands.  Here  I 
have  lived  from  my  youth,  until  now  I  am  an  old  man.  Here 
the  most  sacred  ties  of  earth  were  assumed.  Here  all  my  chil- 
dren were  born,  and  here  one  of  them  lies  buried.  To  you, 


PRESIDENT.  203 

dear  friends,  I  owe  all  that  I  have,  all  that  I  am.  All  the 
strange,  checkered  past  seems  to  crowd  now  upon  my  mind. 
To-day  I  leave  you.  I  go  to  assume  a  task  more  difficult  than 
that  which  devolved  upon  "Washington.  Unless  the  great  God 
who  assisted  him  shall  be  with  and  aid  me,  I  shall  fail ;  but  if 
the  same  omniscient  Mind  and  almighty  Arm  that  directed 
and  protected  him  shall  guide  and  support  me,  I  shall  not  fail. 
I  shall  succeed.  Let  us  pray  that  the  God  of  our  fathers  may 
not  forsake  us  now.  To  him  I  commend  you  all.  Permit 
me  to  ask  that,  with  equal  security  and  faith,  you  will  invoke 
his  wisdom  and  guidance  for  me. 

"  "With  these  few  words  I  must  leave  you,  for  how  long  I 
know  not.  Friends,  one  and  all,  I  must  now  bid  you  an  affec- 
tionate farewell." 

The  railway-train  bore  him  away  and  they  saw  his  face  no 
more. 

It  is  worthy  of  note,  at  this  point,  how  entirely  every  trace 
of  skepticism  concerning  God  and  his  active  providence  in 
human  affairs  had  vanished  from  the  mind  of  Mr.  Lincoln. 
The  fact  should  also  be  noted  that  he  had  not  enrolled  himself  as 
a  member  of  any  one  sect,  or  declared  his  unquestioning  accept- 
ance of  any  one  creed,  selected  from  among  the  many  formu- 
las presented  by  professional  theologians.  The  first  fact  be- 
comes of  greater  importance  and  the  second  of  less  and  less, 
henceforward.  The  man  who  could  not  lie  and  did  not  know 
how  to  be  a  hypocrite,  publicly  and  before  the  world  declared 
his  simple  faith,  both  then  and  afterwards.  So  doing,  he  con 
tinually  called  upon  his  countrymen  to  join  him  in  acts  of  re- 
pentance, forgiveness,  prayer,  thanksgiving,  hope,  trust ;  reas- 
suring them  in  God's  name  when  their  own  hearts  sank  and 
their  own  faith  failed.  He  waded  through  deep  waters  and 
found  God  with  him  there,  and  he  reverently  said  so.  It  is 
too  late  now  for  any  man  rationally  to  accuse  Abraham  Lin- 
coln of  having  acted  and  uttered  a  solemn  lie. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  journey  to  Washington  which  put 


204  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

upon  it  the  appearance  of  a  triumphal  procession,  in  spite  of 
several  ill-advised  local  efforts  in  that  direction.  Crowds  gath- 
ered to  see  and  hear  him,  and  there  was  much  patriotic  enthu- 
siasm manifested,  although  there  were  many  expressions  of 
dissatisfaction  at  the  moderate,  pacific,  and  conciliatory  nature 
of  all  the  speeches  made  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  could  see  and 
understand  that  the  hot-heads  were  in  a  small  minority.  To 
his  ears,  under  and  through  all  the  multitudinous  cheering, 
there  plainly  spoke  the  hoarse  and  boding  monotone  of  the 
doubt  and  dread  with  which  the  hearts  of  men  were  filling. 

It  would  seem,  from  current  expressions  in  the  daily  press, 
that  one  great  fact  escaped  every  audience  of  all  that  heard 
him.  Not  one  seemed  to  comprehend  that  the  President-elect, 
in  addressing  it,  was  also  speaking  to  a  multitude  of  other 
audiences,  North  and  South.  Still  less  could  some  understand 
that  the  expressions  they  would  have  been  glad  to  hear  would 
have  fallen  from  his  lips  with  the  effect  of  lost  battles.  It  should 
have  been,  but  was  not,  obvious  to  all  that  the  one  remaining 
hope  for  the  speedy  restoration  of  peace  lay  in  such  a  restric- 
tion of  the  area  and  resources  of  the  rebellion  as  should  dis- 
hearten its  leaders  by  convincing  them  of  foregone  failure. 
It  was  indeed  a  faint  hope,  but  it  was  honest  and  merciful, 
and  it  was  carefully  encouraged  by  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  hearts 
of  the  yet  undecided  masses  of  the  disputable  Southern  areas, 
until  they  were  made  ready  to  turn  in  their  wrath  against  the 
conspirators  whose  violence  disappointed  them. 

On  his  arrival  at  Philadelphia,  Mr.  Lincoln  received  a  grim 
warning  that  he  had  reached  the  borders  of  the  doubtful  terri- 
tory for  the  control  of  which  the  rebel  leaders  were  intriguing. 

The  State  of  Maryland  was  in  a  condition  of  fierce  but  some- 
what vague  fermentation,  and  the  city  of  Baltimore  was  hardly 
less  bitter  against  Abolitionism  than  was  Richmond  itself.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  true  that  if,  at  as  early  a  day,  Rich- 
mond could  have  been  forcibly  occupied  and  controlled  as  was 
Baltimore  soon  after  this  date,  quite  as  much  and  as  genuine  a 


PRESIDENT.  205 

"Union  sentiment"  would  have  been  found  there,  or  surely 
would  have  been  developed  by  similar  processes. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  responsible  advisers  were  warned  of  what 
seemed  to  be  a  desperate  plot  for  his  murder  while  on  the  road 
to  Washington.  Whether  or  not  their  conclusions  were  well 
sustained  by  the  evidence  in  their  possession  is  of  no  impor- 
tance whatever.  They  were  convinced  of  the  reality  of  the 
impending  peril,  and  every  consideration  forbade  to  them  or 
him  the  crime  of  running  a  needless  risk  of  such  a  disaster. 
No  question  of  mere  vanity  of  individual  courage  could  be  en- 
tertained for  a  moment.  The  trip  across  Maryland  was  there- 
fore made  suddenly  and  in  private,  and  the  Chief  Magistrate- 
elect  of  the  United  States  entered  the  Capital  unexpectedly  to 
all,  and  without  so  much  as  a  group  of  waiting  officials  to  wel- 
come hmi.  There  had  been  no  attempt  at  personal  disguise, 
nor  any  really  undignified  concealment  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln or  the  personal  friends  who  accompanied  him.  Neverthe- 
less, the  whole  affair  was  a  sad  commentary  upon  the  well- 
understood  attitude  of  pro-slavery  feeling  and  purpose.  All 
men  knew  that  slavery  had  frequently  committed  murder  on  a 
small  scale ;  that  it  was  deliberately  preparing  to  do  murder 
on  a  large  scale ;  and  that  its  fiercer  fanatics  could  not  sanely 
be  trusted  to  withhold  their  hands  from  any  particular  brutality. 

The  city  of  Washington  itself,  so  far  as  its  genuine  popular 
feeling  went,  was  hardly  a  part  of  the  disputed  territory. 
There  was  a  strong  and  faithful  Union  element  among  its  citi- 
zens, but  this  was  in  a  sad  minority  both  as  to  number  and 
power.  When  the  new  Commander-in-Chief  and  President 
reached  his  hotel,  he  was,  in  a  manner,  within  the  enemy's  lines. 
He  had  stolen  a  march,  however,  and  his  very  presence  gar- 
risoned the  city  for  the  Union. 

There  was  very  little  indeed  of  any  other  garrison  as  yet, 
except  a  few  marines  at  the  Navy  Yard,  and  a  handful  of  artil- 
lerymen at  the  arsenal,  not  500  in  all.  Regular  organizations 
of  Secessionists,  some  of  them  armed  and  equipped,  existed, 


206  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

met,  drilled,  within  the  city  limits,  and  even  in  the  offices  and 
halls  of  more  than  one  of  the  public  buildings. 

An  attempt  had  been  made  to  reorganize  the  local  militia, 
for  defense  only,  and  not  for  service  beyond  the  District  of 
Columbia,  but  the  results  had  been  more  instructive  than  en- 
couraging. As  early  as  January  2d,  1861,  the  War  Depart- 
ment, advised  by  General  Scott,  assigned  to  this  duty  Captain 
Charles  P.  Stone  of  the  regular  army,  as  Inspector-General  of 
the  District  of  Columbia.  General  Stone's  services  were  in- 
valuable and  were  rendered  under  peculiar  difficulties.  He 
quickly  made  the  discovery  that  the  greater  part  of  the  official 
civilians  of  the  District,  and  of  the  Capital  in  particular,  like 
their  friends  and  exemplars  the  Southern  officers  of  the  army 
and  navy,  were  meditating  if  not  actually  preparing  for  a 
speedy  exchange  into  the  rebel  service.  The  several  militia 
organizations  of  the  city  were  able  to  present  but  one  well 
drilled  and  uniformed  "  crack"  company,  the  National  Rifles. 
This  company,  which  afterwards  rated  in  the  new  organization 
as  "  Company  A,  Third  Battalion,  District  of  Columbia  Rifles," 
was  composed  of  young  gentlemen  of  good  social  standing  and 
fairly  represented  the  better  classes  of  the  municipality,  and  it 
placed  on  record  a  striking  illustration  of  the  situation.  It 
speedily  became  so  depleted  by  desertions  Southward,  including 
its  captain,  that  it  was  necessary  to  fill  its  ranks  anew  with  loyal 
clerks  from  the  departments  and  with  young  men  recently 
arrived  from  the  North.  When  so  filled  up,  it  contained  still  a 
trace  and  remnant  of  the  local  militia,  but  its  body  was  com- 
posed of  representatives  of  nearly  every  loyal  State,  Virginia, 
Kentucky,  and  Missouri  not  excepted.  The  second  company  of 
the  same  battalion  was  composed  almost  entirely  of  Germans, 
and  the  third  of  a  general  mixture  of  native  and  foreign  ele- 
ments. Several  other  "  battalions"  were  formed  under  Gen. 
Stone's  management,  but  a  well-grounded  distrust  of  their  fidel- 
ity prevented  any  very  active  use  of  them  as  a  whole.  After 
the  first  company  named  was  made  over  and  became  truly 


PRESIDENT.  207 

"  national"  it  rendered  good  service.  It  was  employed  on  guard- 
duty  at  the  Long  Bridge  over  the  Potomac  and  elsewhere ;  to 
seize  a  river-steamer  threatened  with  capture  by  the  rebels  ;  to 
occupy  the  railway-station  at  Annapolis  Junction,  and  so  hold 
open  the  gate  for  the  New  York  Seventh  to  come  safely  in ; 
and  on  the  final  invasion  of  Virginia  it  was  the  first  to  enter 
that  State,  across  the  Potomac.  Still  its  history  describes,  more 
perfectly  than  it  could  in  any  other  manner  be  described,  the 
kind  of  loyalty  Mr.  Lincoln  found  waiting  for  him  in  Wash- 
ington :  the  one  military  company  the  District  owned  broke 
ranks  and  went  South. 

Mr.  Lincoln  took  rooms  at  Willard's  Hotel  on  his  arrival. 
He  had  yet  a  week  of  hard  work  between  him  and  the  4th 
of  March.  He  put  himself  at  once  in  communication  with  the 
loyal  members  of  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  and  with  that  true- 
hearted  and  unswerving  old  patriot,  Lieutenant-General  Win- 
field  Scott,  of  Virginia.  The  commonwealth  possessed  in  the 
latter  a  pillar  of  honor  that  could  not  be  and  was  not  for  a 
moment  shaken. 

The  formal  counting  of  the  electoral  votes  in  the  presence 
of  Congress  had  been  duly  performed  on  the  13th  of  February, 
and  even  before  that  date  the  tide  of  new  men  set  in  from  the 
North.  The  city  soon  became  crowded  as  it  had  never  been 
before,  although  so  large  a  percentage  of  its  customary  popula- 
tion, official  and  otherwise,  was  daily  leaving  it  for  more  South- 
erly and  congenial  atmospheres. 

There  was  something  almost  phenomenal  in  the  crowd  of 
hungry  office-seekers.  They  filled  the  hotels  and  boarding- 
houses.  They  thronged  the  passages  and  anterooms  of  the 
public  buildings.  Hundreds  of  anxious  politicians,  large  and 
small,  came  pouring  in  by  every  train,  so  ignorant  of  public  af- 
fairs that  they  hardly  knew  what  to  apply  for,  and  still  less 
for  what  duties  they  were  prepared.  They  came  from  every 
nook  and  corner  of  the  country,  and  they  brought  at  least  one 
unmistakable  comfort  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  Their  very  coming  as- 


208  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

sured  him  that  the  people  they  represented  had  an  undisturbed 
confidence  in  the  stability  of  the  government.  The  masses 
failed  to  realize  any  danger  of  its  overthrow.  Men  could  not 
and  did  not  see  how  nearly  new  was  the  fabric  about  to  take 
shape  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  hands,  or  how  completely  the  old  order 
of  things  had  passed  away. 

The  tone  of  "Washington  "society"  was  intensely  "seces- 
sion," but,  for  the  first  time  in  its  history,  it  found  itself  utterly 
bereft  of  political  influence.  Its  feeble  cry  was  quickly 
drowned  in  the  flood  of  unreasoning  loyalty  from  the  North. 
It  was  all  in  vain  that  the  unanimous  pianos  of  the  lady-rebels 
wore  themselves  out  with  pouring  through  spitefully  open 
windows  the  "  patriotic  music"  of  the  South.  They  kept  it 
up  until  the  day  when  the  Twelfth  New  York  regiment 
marched  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue  with  its  full  brass  band 
playing  "  Dixie"  for  dear  life.  Then  the  piano-players  yielded 
in  disgust,  declaring  that  "  the  Yankees  had  robbed  them  of 
even  their  national  airs." 

The  preparations  made  for  the  "inauguration  ceremonies" 
on  the  4th  of  March  were  somewhat  as  usual,  but  precautions 
were  taken,  of  a  police  and  military  nature,  against  possible 
mob-action  or  any  attempt  at  assassination. 

For  the  first  time  in  American  history  was  any  part  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States  deemed  unworthy  to  be  trusted  to 
keep  the  peace  while  a  chosen  President  should  take  the  oath 
of  office. 

A  vast  throng  gathered  in  front  of  the  eastern  portico  of  the 
Capitol,  upon  the  steps  of  which  a  temporary  structure  of  wood 
had  been  erected  for  the  occasion.  At  twelve  o'clock,  noon, 
the  Buchanan  Administration  expired  by  limitation.  Up  to 
that  hour  Mr.  Buchanan  himself  remained  at  the  Capitol,  en- 
gaged in  signing  bills.  He  then  went  to  Willard's  Hotel,  to 
accompany  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  both  Houses  of  Congress  ad- 
journed. 

All  remaining  preparations  were  quickly  completed,  and  the 


PRESIDENT.  209 

Presidential  procession  formed  upon  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  It 
moved  along  with  a  slow  dignity,  undisturbed  in  any  manner, 
yet  bearing  a  heavy  and  somber  air  which  seemed  to  be  fully 
in  sympathy  with  that  of  the  crowds  which  stared  at  or  accom- 
panied it. 

At  about  a  quarter  past  one  o'clock  Mr.  Lincoln  reached  the 
Senate  Chamber,  where  the  members  of  the  two  Houses,  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  of  the  Diplomatic  Corps,  the  heads  of  ex- 
ecutive departments,  and  other  privileged  persons,  were  already 
assembled.  From  thence,  a  few  moments  later,  all  passed  on, 
in  stately  progress,  to  the  platform  from  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  to  announce  his  purposes  as  President, — not  to  that  throng 
only,  but  to  the  country  and  to  the  world. 

He  had  given  the  finishing  touches  to  his  address  that  very 
morning.  None  knew  so  well  as  he  what  consequences  would 
surely  follow  any  blunder  in  tone  or  mistake  in  declaration. 
He  looked  worn  and  pale  and  anxious,  but  from  the  first  to  the? 
last  his  voice  rang  out  clear,  firm,  unhesitating,  resonant  with 
faith  and  courage,  while  its  every  tremor  and  modulation 
seemed  to  vouch  for  his  sincerity.  He  was  making  his  last 
appeal  for  peace  and  his  last  solemn  protest  against  needless 
bloodshed.  The  address  may  be  epitomized  as  an  argumenta- 
tive attempt  to  convince  all  whom  it  might  concern  that  there 
was  nothing  in  the  past  or  present  attitude  or  purposes  of  the 
Republican  party,  nor  any  possible  action  by  the  national  gov- 
ernment as  it  would  be  administered  by  himself,  which  could 
sanely  be  construed  as  a  justification  of  revolution  and  civil 
war.  There  was  in  it,  however,  no  expression  which  could  be 
interpreted  as  an  admission  of  the  right  of  peaceable  secession 
on  the  part  of  any  State.  On  the  contrary,  it  contained  one 
clause  which  closed  the  door  upon  any  hope  which  the  con- 
spirators may  have  entertained  that  the  threatening  aspect  of 
affairs  had  affected  his  steady  firmness.  He  said  : 

"  The  power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold,  occupy,  and 
possess  the  property  and  places  belonging  to  the  government 


210  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  to  collect  the  duties  and  imposts ;  but  beyond  what  may 
be  necessary  for  these  objects  there  will  be  no  invasion,  no 
using  of  force  among  the  people  anywhere." 

He  kept  his  word  carefully  afterwards,  for  he  thus  described 
the  precise  result  obtained  when,  four  years  later,  the  last  rebel 
army  laid  down  its  arms  and  surrendered.  In  these  few  words 
he  condensed  the  most  important  visible  expressions  of  Ameri- 
can national  sovereignty. 

Towards  the  close  of  his  argument  Mr.  Lincoln  addressed 
himself  altogether  to  the  people  of  the  seceded  States  and  such 
other  communities  as  seemed  likely  to  follow  their  leading. 
He  said : 

"  In  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen,  and  not 
in  mine  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  govern- 
ment will  not  assail  you.  You  can  have  no  conflict  without 
being  yourselves  the  aggressors." 

This  was  but  a  plain  reiteration  of  his  frequently  declared 
^position,  and  it  was  now  more  than  ever  perfectly  understood 
and  comprehended.  The  rebellion  had  already  taken  him  at 
his  word.  It  had  made  itself  the  aggressor  at  a  hundred  dif- 
ferent places,  and  it  was  hourly  preparing  to  strike  such  addi- 
tional blows  as  should  assume  for  it  the  full  responsibility  he 
so  forcibly  presented. 

There  is  one  other  sentence  in  the  address  which  is  full  of 
meaning.  It  tells  in  a  few  words  a  fundamental  truth  of  the 
American  national  organism. 

Of  politics,  in  1850,  he  had  said  to  his  friend  Mr.  Stuart : 
"The  time  will  come  when  we  must  all  be  Democrats  or 
Abolitionists." 

Of  the  government  and  its  constitution  he  had  said,  in  1858, 
in  his  Bloomington  speech :  "  I  believe  this  government  can- 
not endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  ex- 
pect the  Union  to  be  dissolved.  It  will  become  all  one  thing 
or  all  the  other." 


PRESIDENT.  211 

Of  the  territorial  area  involved  lie  now  said  with  equal 
clearness :  "  Physically  speaking  we  cannot  separate." 

The  leaders  of  the  rebellion  perfectly  understood  the  axiom 
so  enunciated,  and  they  had  laid  their  plans  accordingly. 

For  more  than  a  generation  they  had  ruled  the  whole  coun- 
try through  the  clumsy  machinery  provided  for  them  at  "Wash- 
ington. Their  "  secession"  now  was  but  a  first  step  in  a  design 
which  proposed  a  more  absolute,  more  sweeping,  and  more 
arbitrary  domination. 

They  looked  forward  to  the  control  of  the  entire  territory  of 
the  United  States,  then  to  that  of  the  whole  continent  to  the 
Isthmus,  and  with  that  the  absorption  of  the  "West  Indies. 

Slavery  was  aggressive  as  a  necessity  of  its  existence.  Its 
rebuff  in  its  attempt  upon  Kansas  and  Nebraska  had  but  pre- 
cipitated the  more  desperate  undertakings  of  its  bloody  cam- 
paign for  its  life.  At  the  hour  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was  speak- 
ing, armed  rebel  forces  were  already  preparing  to  seize  New 
Mexico  and  the  adjacent  Territories.  A  well-devised  conspir- 
acy was  at  work  in  the  free  State  of  California.  There  was  a 
strong  pro-slavery  element  in  the  city  of  New  York,  hardly 
deigning  to  disguise  itself  under  what  now  seems  the  wild  pro- 
ject for  slicing  off  that  commercial  metropolis  by  itself  as  "  a 
free  city." 

In  every  place,  and  in  whatever  form,  the  true  intent  and 
meaning  of  every  suggestion  of  dismemberment  was  the  event- 
ual unification  of  the  United  States  as  a  Slave  Empire. 

The  issue  thus  created  was  met  squarely  by  Mr.  Lincoln  then 
and  afterwards,  but  the  hour  was  not  ripe  for  its  elaborate  pre- 
sentation. He  was  a  ruler  about  to  assume  the  direction  of  a 
war  in  which  his  opponents  had  had  nearly  their  own  way  for 
three  months.  He  was  a  commander-in-chief  with  a  bank- 
rupt treasury  and  without  either  army  or  navy.  He  was 
himself  then  standing  upon  a  platform  on  the  steps  of  a  build- 
ing some  days'  march  within  the  enemy's  lines.  He  was  ad- 
dressing himself  to  populations  listening  to  his  words  as  if 


212  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

almost  in  search  of  causes  of  offence.  He  was  compelled  to 
clothe  his  plainest  enunciations  in  such  forms  of  speech  as 
should  not  throw  away  communities  and  States  by  arraying 
angrily  against  him  the  very  elements  whereof  he  hoped  and 
intended  to  make  immediate  use. 

Read  in  the  light  of  subsequent  deeds  and  events,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's inaugural  address  must  be  given  the  high  praise  that  it 
was  a  State  paper  equal  to  the  demands  of  an  unparalleled  oc- 
casion. 


WAR.  213 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

WAR. 

The  New  Era — Unification  of  the  South — Free  Speech — Copperheads — The 
Cabinet — The  White  House — Confederate  Ambassadors — Traitors  in 
Office— The  Border  States— The  Sumter  Gun— The  President's  Call  to 
Arms— April,  1861. 

MK.  JEFFEKSON  DAVIS  was  installed  as  President  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy  on  the  18th  of  February,  1861,  and  the 
flag  of  rebellion,  afterwards  so  well  known  as  the  "  Stars  and 
Bars,"  was  formally  adopted,  on  the  4th  of  March,  as  the  em- 
blem of  organized  pro-slavery  war.  Around  the  flag  and  its 
chosen  bearer  were  rapidly  grouped  and  solidified  the  ready 
elements  of  the  great  peril  with  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  thus 
far  dealt  with  such  skillful  and  courageous  conservatism. 

The  forces  he  was  thenceforth  to  direct  were  ample,  but 
were  as  yet  chaotic  and  tumultuous,  and  his  first  duties  were 
mainly  those  of  organization. 

The  last  Congress  of  the  Buchanan  Administration  had 
steadily  drifted  out  of  pro-slavery  control.  The  consecutive 
departures  of  its  ultra-Southern  membership  left  it  more  and 
more  a  "  Republican"  body,  politically  speaking,  but  its  Union- 
loving  elements  were  irregularly  stratified  and  were  not  yet 
prepared  to  work  in  unison.  Its  closing  hours  were  signalized 
by  the  rejection  of  the  weak  work  of  the  so-called  "Peace 
Congress"  and  of  what  was  known  as  the  "  Crittenden  Com- 
promise." 

The  timely  death  of  these  twin-children  of  legislative  timid- 
ity relieved  Mr.  Lincoln  of  any  annoying  guardianship  of  what 
must  have  proved  a  perpetual  minority. 


214  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

On  the  adjournment  of  Congress  and  the  unobstructed  in- 
auguration, the  North  as  a  whole  and  the  Union  men  of  the 
border  States  breathed  more  freely  for  a  few  days,  but  the  war 
went  steadily  onward.  The  chosen  chief  of  the  rebellion,  a 
man  of  intense  individuality,  despotic  will,  and  much  executive 
ability,  was  rapidly  invested  with  powers  which  were  only  in 
name  and  form  less  than  autocratic.  He  and  his  fellow-con- 
spirators clearly  perceived  the  necessity  of  forbidding  and  pre- 
venting any  open  division  of  popular  sentiment  in  the  districts 
under  their  control. 

The  structure  of  Southern  society  gave  them  all  facilities, 
and  they  began  at  once  a  work  of  suppression,  continued  to  the 
end  of  the  war,  which  did  not  hesitate  in  the  employment  "of 
needful  methods  and  agencies.  The  most  searching  espionage 
was  supplemented  by  the  most  pitiless  cruelty,  and  in  due  time 
the  rebellious  region  was  effectively  unified. 

No  similar  assault  upon  or  destruction  of  personal  liberty  of 
thought  or  speech  or  action  was  at  all  possible  at  the  North. 
No  such  tyranny  was  called  for,  nor  was  it  ever  undertaken. 
It  would  have  been  as  foreign  to  the  nature  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as 
to  the  genius  of  the  free  people  who  sustained  him.  Both  he 
and  they  were  afterwards  slow  to  adopt  the  simplest  and  most 
necessary  repressive  measures.  From  the  first  to  the  last  the 
critics  of  the  Administration  used  their  tongues  and  pens  with 
a  freedom  which  was  by  no  means  altogether  due  to  the  gen- 
eral faith  in  their  impotence  for  serious  mischief.  Doubtless 
contempt  had  its  share,  however,  in  the  leniency  extended  at 
the  North  to  the  large  class  of  politicians  of  traitorous  ten- 
dencies who  shortly  came  to  be  known  as  "  Copperheads,"  from 
the  venomous  reptile  of  that  name. 

The  selection  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  Cabinet  was  nearly  completed 
when  he  took  the  oath  of  office.  The  group  of  men  he  now 
gathered  around  him  was  eminently  representative,  politically 
and  geographically.  "William  H.  Seward,  of  New  York,  was 
appointed  Secretary  of  State;  Simon  Cameron,  of  Pennsyl- 


WAR.  215 

vania,  Secretary  of  War;  Gideon  Welles,  of  Connecticut, 
Secretary  of  the  Navy ;  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio,  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury ;  Caleb  B.  Smith,  of  Indiana,  Secretary  of  the 
Interior ;  Edward  Bates,  of  Missouri,  Attorney-General ;  and 
Montgomery  Blair,  of  Maryland,  Postmaster-General. 

Subsequent  changes  need  not  now  be  noted,  but  it  was  evi- 
dent from  the  first  that  it  would  require  a  man  of  marked  in- 
tellectual and  moral  superiority  to  be  the  actual  guiding  mind, 
governing  will,  and  recognized  chief  among  such  men  as  these 
whose  success  as  leaders  was  already  notable.  Many,  indeed, 
were  ready  to  offer  an  opinion  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would  either 
be  a  puppet  in  their  hands,  tossed  to  and  fro  between  opposing 
cabals  as  Mr.  Buchanan  had  been,  or  that,  for  peace  and  quiet, 
he  would  soon  drift  under  the  sole  management  of  some  one 
strong  mind  and  subtle  purpose  among  his  constitutional  ad- 
visers. That  there  was  never  the  slightest  peril  or  sign  of 
either  disaster  is  a  testimonial  of  the  completeness  with  which 
he  had  already  mapped  out  the  course  he  meant  to  pursue.  At 
the  same  time  it  speaks  for  the  acuteness  and  patriotic  readiness 
with  which  the  Cabinet  at  once  stepped  out  upon  the  path  upon 
which  they  were  to  co-operate  but  not  to  lead. 

The  Executive  Mansion  was  a  curious  study  during  many 
•days  and  weeks  following  the  inauguration.  Its  halls  and 
offices  were  literally  packed  with  human  beings.  There  were 
days  when  the  throng  of  eager  applicants  for  office  filled  the 
broad  staircase  to  its  lower  steps;  the  corridors  of  the  first 
floor ;  the  famous  East  Room ;  the  private  parlors ;  while  anx- 
ious groups  and  individuals  paraded  up  and  down  the  outer 
porch,  the  walks,  and  the  Avenue. 

The  entrance  of  the  Cabinet  officers  upon  their  duties  and 
appointing  powers  drew  away  much  of  this  pressure  after  a 
while,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  at  once  accused  of  transferring  too 
much  of  his  prerogative  to  his  subordinates.  That  he  should 
have  relief  would  have  been  a  physical  necessity  under  any 
circumstances,  but  he  now  had  more  important  matters  on  his 


216  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

hands  than  the  apportionment  of  partisan  rewards  of  services. 
His  kindly  nature  led  him  to  surrender  only  too  much  of  his 
time  and  strength  to  private  hopes  and  ambitions.  He  had 
hardly  time  left  him  to  eat  and  sleep. 

The  clerical  work  of  the  executive  office  under  previous  ad- 
ministrations had  been  comparatively  small,  and  there  was  no 
existing  law  under  which  the  force  for  its  performance  could 
be  increased.  The  President  of  the  United  States  was  allowed 
but  one  "  private  secretary,"  on  a  very  moderate  stipend.  To 
this  office  he  appointed  Mr.  John  G.  Nicolay,  who  had  already 
served  him  in  that  capacity.  Now  that  the  sheer  need  of  work 
in  hand  called  for  a  second  private  secretary,  and  Mr.  John 
Hay  was  in  fact  made  such,  it  was  necessary  to  have  him  ap- 
pointed a  clerk  in  a  department  and  "  assigned  to  duty"  at  the 
White  House.  A  few  weeks  later,  when  a  third  was  needed, 
it  was  easy  to  summon  to  Mr.  ISTicolay's  assistance  Mr.  Wil- 
liam O.  Stoddard,  who  had  been  already  appointed  the  Presi- 
dent's secretary  to  sign  land-patents. 

These  three  young  men,  with  occasional  help  from  depart- 
ment clerks  detailed,  were  all  the  force  with  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
performed  the  ceaseless  labors  of  the  executive  office  during 
the  earlier  and  stormier  days  of  his  administration. 

That  there  was  much  transfer  of  "bureau  work"  to  the 
several  departments  where  it  belonged  requires  no  other  ex- 
planation. 

It  was  contrary  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  nature  to  meddle  with  petty 
details  unnecessarily,  but  he  was  frequently  drawn  into  what 
looked  like  meddling  by  his  eager  desire  for  exact  informa- 
tion ;  by  the  real  or  apparent  application  of  a  principle ;  by  the 
expression  of  personal  good  will  or  under  the  influence  of  some 
strong  emotion.  Those  who  accused  him  of  listening  too  easily 
to  the  importunities  of  friends  and  the  pressure  of  interested 
politicians  knew  very  little  of  the  tidal  waves  which  daily 
broke  at  his  door  to  recede  in  a  grumbling  "  undertow"  of  bit- 
ter dissatisfaction. 


WAS.  217 

The  days  of  the  first  week  were  expended  in  making  the 
more  important  official  appointments  to  office ;  in  strengthen- 
ing somewhat  the  shadowy  military  force  at  command;  but 
more  than  all  in  gaining  time  for  the  sure  operation  of  the  less 
visible  forces  which  were  steadily  depriving  the  conspirators 
of  the  advantages  so  nearly  within  their  reach. 

On  the  12th  of  March  there  arrived  in  "Washington  three 
very  extraordinary  ambassadors.  Mr.  Roman,  of  Louisiana, 
Mr.  Forsyth,  of  Alabama,  and  Mr.  Crawford,  of  Georgia,  were 
empowered  by  the  Confederate  Government  to  open  diplo- 
matic relations  with  the  Government  of  the  United  States. 
They  were  not  private  adventurers,  but  commissioners  duly 
nominated  by  the  Confederate  President,  and  confirmed  Feb- 
ruary 25  by  the  Confederate  Senate.  Their  errand,  to  ex- 
press it  concisely  and  correctly,  was  to  demand  and  accept  the 
pusillanimous  surrender,  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  to  the  Rebellion  in 
arms,  of  all  it  had  already  seized  and  as  much  more  as  it  could 
lay  its  hands  upon.  It  was  their  business  to  invite  him  to 
imitate  stupidly  the  intelligent  treachery  of  General  Twiggs 
when  the  latter  surrendered  the  troops  and  forts  in  Texas. 

The  three  commissioners  were  not  arrested  for  treason. 
They  came  unnoticed  and  departed  unhindered.  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  bitterly  blamed  for  this  by  over-zealous  patriots,  who 
could  not  discern  that  the  brazen  impudence  of  such  an  em- 
bassy was  also  a  plain  expression  of  the  dullness  behind  it 
which  could  be  guilty  of  such  a  blunder. 

The  North  was  now  at  last  beginning  to  wake  up  and  arm 
itself.  The  new  government  at  Washington  was  rapidly  com- 
pleting its  organization.  Swift  search  and  inquiry  was  making 
among  army  and  navy  officers  and  civil  employees  of  the  de- 
partments as  to  what  might  be  expected  of  them.  It  was  pre- 
eminently needful  that  the  government  should  know  something 
of  the  probable  capacity  and  fidelity  of  its  agents  before  en- 
trusting them  with  the  execution  of  war  measures.  The  absence 
or  def ectiveness  of  such  knowledge,  in  the  outset,  and  the  se- 


218  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

lection  and  assignment  of  new  men  to  varied  duties,  and  not 
at  all  any  imaginable  vacillation  or  uncertainty  of  the  Presi- 
dent's purposes,  operated  as  a  kind  of  partial  paralysis  for  a 
time. 

A  complete  illustration  of  this  peculiar  difficulty  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's position  during  those  long,  weary  weeks  of  March  is 
offered  by  the  subsequent  destruction  of  the  Norfolk  Navy 
Yard,  in  Virginia,  instead  of  its  retention  as  a  military  post. 
"With  all  its  vast  uses,  it  was  lost  to  the  nation  by  the  base 
treachery  of  the  very  officers  in  charge  of  it ;  its  loyal  com- 
mander, Commodore  McCauley,  being  powerless  among  his 
rebel  subordinates.  Mr.  Lincoln  might  well  act  cautiously  un- 
til a  species  of  weeding-out  process  had  performed  itself  more 
thoroughly  by  the  actual  personal  seceding  of  the  Secessionists 
in  Federal  offices. 

On  the  6th  of  the  month  the  Confederate  Government  is- 
sued its  first  formal  call  for  troops.  Only  one  hundred  thou- 
sand were  summoned,  but  it  had  at  least  that  number  already, 
more  or  less  perfectly  organized  and  armed,  under  competent 
officers. 

The  South  contained  much  more  than  its  proportion  of 
West  Point  graduates,  retired  from  military  service.  To  these 
were  rapidly  added  no  less  than  269  officers  whose  secession 
proclivities  led  them  to  resign  their  positions  in  the  United 
States  army.  How  large  a  power  of  courage,  dash,  genius,  and 
military  science  these  men  carried  with  them  the  course  of 
the  war  was  yet  to  show ;  but  the  army  was  an  untrustworthy 
machine  until  they  were  all  out  of  it. 

The  Confederate  statesmen  were  providing  their  proposed 
campaign  with  materials  as  well  as  men.  Their  emissaries  in 
New  York  and  elsewhere  were  buying  and  shipping  to  them 
all  obtainable  arms  and  munitions  of  war.  Larger  purchases 
than  ever  before  were  making  in  the  West  of  provisions  of  all 
sorts,  and  the  cargoes  were  hastening  down  the  Mississippi. 

The  energy,  foresight,  and  ability  displayed  in  this  direction 


WAR.  219 

were  undeniable ;  but  in  spite  of  all  this  and  their  relentless 
determination,  they  were  wasting  time  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
using. 

He  was  in  sore  need  of  every  hour.  The  secession  element 
in  all  the  doubtful  regions  was  in  a  state  of  fermentation, 
nearly  ready  for  an  explosion.  Should  this  be  unduly  hastened, 
no  human  wisdom  could  forecast  the  consequences.  As  early 
as  December  24, 1860,  the  Richmond,  Ya.,  Enquirer  newspaper 
had  editorially  recommended  that  Virginia  and  Maryland 
should  unite  in  resuming  possession  of  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia and  the  city  of  Washington.  The  seizure  could  then  have 
been  made  irresistibly,  or  at  any  date  thereafter  up  to  the  first 
day  of  May.  Both  States  contained  organized  military  bodies 
of  sufficient  strength,  composed  of  men  who  merely  waited  an 
apparent  pretext  and  some  sort  of  lawful  authority  for  active 
operations. 

Delay  was  their  defeat.  The  national  capital  and  the  territory 
north  of  it,  to  the  free-State  lines,  which  lay  at  the  mercy  of 
the  rebellion  all  through  the  month  of  March,  grew  less  and 
less  so  from  the  first  of  April  onward.  That  its  danger  then 
became  more  apparent  to  all  men  was  but  because  all  men1  be- 
gan to  see  more  plainly.  By  that  time  the  new  national  gov- 
ernment was  organized  very  nearly  as  thoroughly  as  was  its 
somewhat  older  antagonist  at  Montgomery.  It  had  at  its  com- 
mand no  troops  to  speak  of,  but  the  States  of  Yirginia  and 
North  Carolina  were  still  left  as  a  neutral  belt  between  the 
bare  and  undefended  lines  of  the  Potomac  and  that  part  of  the 
rebel  forces  which  was  prepared  for  immediate  battle. 

It  was  impossible  that  this  state  of  things  should  continue 
much  longer.  The  Confederacy  was  suffering  too  much  from 
it  and  found  at  last  a  pretext  for  its  forcible  termination. 

The  siege  of  Fort  Sumter  had  thus  far  been  confined  to  a 
rigid  blockade,  and  the  unmilitary  millions  of  the  American 
people  were  unable  to  realize  that  this  was  as  distinct  and  posi- 
tive an  act  of  war  as  the  resonant  use  of  gunpowder.  The  gar- 


220  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

rison  was  now  running  short  of  provisions,  and  it  was  both  the 
right  and  duty  of  the  government  at  "Washington  to  supply 
them.  The  performance  of  this  duty  was  delayed  to  the  last 
moment  consistent  with  honor  or  humanity,  in  order  that  the 
inevitable  consequences  might  also  be  postponed  as  long  as 
possible. 

On  the  8th  of  April  a  government  messenger  read  to  Gov- 
ernor Pickens,  of  South  Carolina,  at  Charleston,  the  following 
brief  message : 

"  I  am  directed  by  the  President  of  the  "United  States  to  no- 
tify you  to  expect  an  attempt  will  be  made  to  supply  Fort 
Sumter  with  provisions  only,  and  that  if  such  attempt  be  not 
resisted  no  effort  to  throw  in  provisions,  arms,  or  ammunition 
will  be  made  without  further  notice  or  in  case  of  an  attack  on 
the  fort." 

The  relieving  expedition  did  not  sail  from  New  York  until 
the  morning  of  the  9th,  and  it  never  performed  its  mission. 
There  was  something  of  confusion  and  delay  in  its  official 
management,  and  a  rough  sea  helped  to  defeat  the  zeal  of  its 
brave  commander ;  but  it  had  already  been  denied  a  landing. 

After  some  preliminary  exchanges  of  threats  and  responses 
between  the  besiegers  and  the  besieged,  the  political  mine  had 
been  fired,  and  the  explosion  had  blown  away  all  remaining 
uncertainties.  The  rebel  authorities  gravely  decided  that  Mr. 
Lincoln's  notification  of  his  intention  to  prevent  starvation  in 
Fort  Sumter  was  "  a  declaration  of  war."  Only  the  grim  and 
ghastly  consequences  of  their  decision  conceal  the  humorous 
absurdity  of  it.  At  half -past  four  o'clock,  on  the  morning  of 
April  12,  the  first  gun,  "the  Sumter  gun,"  was  fired,  and 
the  first  shell  struck  the  fort.  It  was  a  well-aimed  shot.  No 
harm  was  done  to  the  fortress,  but  Mr.  Lincoln's  most  serious 
perplexities  were  knocked  away  for  him.  The  "  policy  of  de- 
lay" was  shattered  forever,  at  the  very  moment  when  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  himself  decided  that  he  could  not  continue  it  with 
advantage  nor  abandon  it  without  peril.  He  knew  that  every 


WAR.  221 

man  in  the  country  could  hear  that  cannon  and  understand  the 
meaning  of  that  bursting  shell. 

For  the  Kebellion,  also,  that  shot  and  those  which  followed 
it  were  apparently  well  aimed.  The  garrison  of  Fort  Sumter 
was  compelled  to  haul  down  the  Stars  and  Stripes  and  surren- 
der, on  Sunday  morning,  April  14 ;  but  the  capture  of  the 
fortress  was  only  a  part  of  the  seeming  Secession  victory.  Al- 
ready the  war-fever  had  spread  with  electric  swiftness  through 
North  Carolina,  Virginia,  Arkansas,  Maryland,  and  the  news 
of  such  a  victory  augmented  it  with  a  sudden  power. 

The  war — for  such  the  state  of  hostilities  must  be  called — 
had  now  continued  for  four  full  months  with  fluctuating 
fortunes,  and  the  rebels  had  many  good  reasons  for  rejoicing 
over  their  present  advantage.  With  it  came  the  port  of 
Charleston,  afterwards  so  useful  to  them,  and  which  would 
have  been  so  dangerous  to  them  in  the  hands  of  a  Federal 
army. 

In  a  few  days,  and  practically  captured  at  the  same  hour, 
came  all  the  States  above  named  except  Maryland.  They 
would  have  obtained  that  also,  and  with  it  what  is  now  "West 
Virginia,  and  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  if  it  had  not  been  for 
yet  another  and  to  them  an  entirely  unlooked-for  consequence 
of  their  victory  in  Charleston  harbor. 

It  is  very  difficult  now  to  understand,  difficult  even  to  be- 
lieve, the  nature,  degree,  extent,  of  the  delusions  then  preva- 
lent at  the  South  concerning  the  resources  and  character  of 
the  people  of  the  North.  Even  the  nominally  educated  and 
intelligent  classes  shared  in  these  delusions,  remarkably.  That 
the  population  of  the  free  States  was  utterly  unwarlike,  and 
would  shrink  from  the  ordeal  of  actual  bloodshed,  was  so 
deeply  ingrained  in  the  Southern  mind  that  it  was  impossible, 
years  afterwards,  for  even  official  statistics  to  convince  them 
that  the  national  armies  were  not  mainly  composed  of  hired 
foreigners. 

Mr.  Lincoln  knew  his  countrymen  better,  and  his  entire 


222  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

demeanor  changed,  in  his  utter  confidence  as  to  the  response 
which  would  be  made  to  the  Sumter  gun. 

Yet  he  had  reasons  for  proceeding  with  caution  even  now. 

Clearly  perceiving  the  near  and  open  coming  to  himself  of 
dictatorial  power  and  responsibility,  and  feeling  that  he  must 
at  once,  but  unobtrusively,  assume  and  exercise  both,  his  first 
action  evinced  neither  alarm  nor  haste. 

The  news  of  the  fall  of  Sumter  reached  Washington  on  Sun- 
day morning,  April  14,  but  it  was  already  well  known  by  the 
President  that  such  news  must  come  and  that  its  arrival  was  a 
question  of  a  few  hours  only.  The  news  of  the  bombardment 
had  arrived  but  one  day  earlier,  but  its  foreordained  results  did 
not  take  him  by  surprise.  The  Cabinet  had  already  been  sum- 
moned, and  had  assembled  to  discuss  the  situation.  There  is 
good  evidence  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  opposed  by  the 
majority  of  his  constitutional  advisers,  first,  in  his  determina- 
tion to  hold  Fort  Sumter  to  the  last,  and  then  in  his  decision  to 
re-provision  it.  He  was  now  to  show  them  that  the  result  was 
no  more  a  disappointment  to  him  than  to  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis 
himself.  That  gentleman,  in  the  month  of  February,  1861, 
when  on  his  way  to  Montgomery  to  assume  the  Presidency  of 
the  Confederacy,  remarked  to  ex-Chief  Justice  Sharkey,  of 
Mississippi,  "There  will  be  war,  long  and  bloody."  In  his 
inaugural  address  he  said,  "It  is  deemed  advisable  in  the 
present  condition  of  affairs  that  there  should  be  a  well  in- 
structed and  disciplined  army,  more  numerous  than  would 
usually  be  required  on  a  peace  establishment." 

How  vigorously  he  and  his  supporters  acted  upon  their  sound 
convictions  is  matter  of  history.  They  did  what  they  could,  but 
they  had  thus  far  been  unable  to  break  through  the  "  border- 
State  barrier"  maintained  against  them  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  pru- 
dence. It  had  been  the  only  defense  he  could  safely  employ 
until  they  themselves,  by  the  capture  of  Fort  Sumter,  set  his 
hands  free.  So  many  things  were  then  living  that  are  now 


WAR  223 

dead,  or  live  only  in  other  forms,  that  it  is  not  easy  to  explain 
or  understand  what  mere  questions  of  "  statute  law"  and  con- 
stitutional interpretation  had,  up  to  this  moment,  been  felt  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  as  fetters  upon  his  conduct.  There  was  a  war 
upon  his  hands,  but  nothing  as  yet  had  visibly  conferred  the 
war  power  upon  him.  Huge  "  anti-coercion  meetings"  in  the 
great  cities  of  the  North,  and  the  utterances  of  the  most  loyal 
journals,  kept  him  well  advised  of  the  prevalent  conservatism 
of  public  opinion. 

Able  lawyers  openly  expressed  professional  doubts  as  to 
whether  Mr.  Lincoln  had  any  power  to  Call  for  troops  or  to 
make  use  of  them  if  he  should  call  and  get  them.  He  had  no 
constitutional  right  or  authority  to  raise  or  appropriate  money. 
The  lawyers  were  almost  unanimous  in  declaring  that  he 
must  at  least  await  the  assembling  and  action  of  Congress. 
It  would  not  do  for  him  to  tyrannically  usurp  anything 
beyond  what  was  set  down  in  the  books  and  expounded  by 
learned  counsel. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  himself  a  lawyer,  but  he  was  something 
more.  He  was  a  statesman  and  a  ruler,  born,  educated, 
trained,  and  prepared  for  the  precise  emergency  in  which  he 
now  found  himself.  He  possessed  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
and  an  unfaltering  confidence  in  a  people  who  would  be  ready 
to  sustain  him  in  almost  any  imaginable  course  of  action  which 
should  express  and  accomplish  their  vehement  but  altogether 
intelligent  and  righteous  will. 

So  complete  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  moral  and  mental  prepara- 
tion that  the  famous  "first  proclamation  calling  for  troops" 
was  written  by  his  own  hand  and  was  on  its  way  over  the 
country  by  mail  and  telegraph  before  that  Sunday  was  over. 
It  bore  date  of  Monday,  the  15th  of  April,  1861,  and  is  a  sort 
of  crystallization  in  words  of  the  President's  exact  mind  and 
purpose.  It  was  as  follows : 


224  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"PROCLAMATION 
"  By  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

"Whereas,  The  laws  of  the  United  States  have  been  for 
some  time  past  and  now  are  opposed,  and  the  execution  thereof 
obstructed,  in  the  States  of  South  Carolina,  Alabama,  Georgia, 
Florida,  Mississippi,  Louisiana,  and  Texas,  by  combinations  too 
powerful  to  be  suppressed  by  the  ordinary  course  of  judicial 
proceedings  or  by  the  powers  vested  in  the  marshals  by  law : 
Now  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United 
States,  in  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested  by  the  Constitution 
and  the  laws,  have  thought  fit  to  call  forth,  and  hereby  do  call 
forth,  the  militia  of  the  several  States  of  the  Union,  to  the 
aggregate  number  of  seventy-five  thousand,  in  order  to  sup- 
press said  combinations  and  to  cause  the  laws  to  be  duly  ex- 
ecuted. 

"  The  details  for  this  object  will  be  immediately  communi- 
cated to  the  State  authorities  through  the  War  Department. 
I  appeal  to  all  loyal  citizens  to  favor,  facilitate,  and  aid  this 
effort  to  maintain  the  honor,  the  integrity,  and  existence  of  our 
National  Union  and  the  perpetuity  of  popular  government, 
and  to  redress  wrongs  already  long  enough  endured.  I  deem 
it  proper  to  say  that  the  first  service  assigned  to  the  forces 
hereby  called  forth  will  probably  be  to  repossess  the  forts, 
places,  and  property  which  have  been  seized  from  the  Union, 
and  in  every  event  the  utmost  care  will  be  observed  consist- 
ently with  the  objects  aforesaid  to  avoid  any  devastation,  any 
destruction  of  or  interference  with  property,  or  any  disturb- 
ance of  peaceful  citizens  in  any  part  of  the  country ;  and  I 
hereby  command  the  persons  composing  the  combinations 
aforesaid  to  disperse  and  retire  peaceably  to  their  respective 
abodes  within  twenty  days  from  this  date. 

"  Deeming  that  the  present  condition  of  public  affairs  pre- 
sents an  extraordinary  occasion,  I  do  hereby,  in  virtue  of  the 


WAR.  225 

power  in  me  vested  by  the  Constitution,  convene  both  Houses 
of  Congress.  Senators  and  Representatives  are  therefore  sum- 
moned to  assemble  at  their  respective  chambers  at  twelve 
o'clock  noon  on  Thursday,  the  fourth  day  of  July  next,  then 
and  there  to  consider  and  determine  such  measures  as  in 
their  wisdom  the  public  safety  and  interest  may  seem  to 
demand. 

"In  witness  whereof  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand  and 
caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

"Done  at  the  city  of  Washington,  this  fifteenth  day  of 
April,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
sixty-one,  and  of  the  independence  of  tjie  United  States  the 
eighty-fifth.  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  By  the  President, 

"  WILLIAM  H.  SEWAED,  Secretary  of  State.'* 

The  actual  writing  of  this  extraordinary  document  was  done 
in  the  few  hours  which  followed  the  arrival  of  the  news  of  the 
fall  of  Fort  Sumter,  but  it  presents  no  marks  of  sudden  or 
hasty  work.  It  was  the  result  of  thoughtful  preparation,  and 
is  the  condensed  expression  of  deliberate  statesmanship. 

At  that  very  hour  nothing  could  be  more  sure  than  that 
Virginia  and  North  Carolina  would  at  once  join  the  Confeder- 
acy, and  that  the  national  capital,  with  all  that  it  contained, 
would  speedily  require  armed  defenders.  That  these  were 
ready  to  come  at  the  call  of  the  President  was  also  instantly 
known. 

The  first  effect  of  the  Sumter  gun  was  felt  in  the  Cabinet  of 
Mr.  Lincoln,  which  was  unified  by  the  same  event  which  made 
it  otherwise  possible  for  him  to  go  forward  in  utter  disregard 
of  legal  technicalities.  He  was  at  once  endowed  with  all  the 
powers  latent  in  his  responsibilities  or  implied  by  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  case ;  and  he  was  in  mind  and  will  fully  prepared  to 
employ  them. 

It  was  needful  for  him  to  assume  dictatorial  authority,  and 


226  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  people  tacitly  expected  of  him  that  he  should  do  so.  He 
did  it,  but  did  it  so  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  plain  logic 
of  the  situation  that  neither  he  nor  the  popular  masses  who 
obeyed  him  perceived  that  he  had  done  so.  This,  too,  although 
the  portentous  fact  of  his  dictatorship  was  urged  upon  them 
both,  from  that  time  forward,  by  a  host  of  busy  tongues  and 
pens,  in  the  press,  in  legislative  bodies,  in  courts  of  law,  and  in 
the  hi^lls  of  the  national  Congress. 


TEE  GREAT  AWAKEXISG.  227 

CHAPTER  XXIX. 

TILE   GREAT   AWAKESTS G. 

A  Steady  Hand— The  Rebellion  extending— The  Loyal  North— The  Bal- 
timore Mob — Rebellion  in  Maryland — Confederate  Hopes  and  Failures 
— Peril  of  Washington — Arrival  of  Troops  from  the  North — The 
Gateway  to  the  North — Arrival  of  the  New  York  Seventh — Capture 
of  Baltimore — Case  of  CoL  Robert  £.  Lee — Secession  of  Virginia — 
Call  for  Three  Years'  Volunteers — Crushing  of  Secession  in  Maryland. 

ON  the  6th  of  March,  1861,  the  Confederate  Congress  had 
passed  a  law  for  the  establishment  of  "  The  Army  of  the  Con- 
federate States  of  America."  From  that  time  forward  the 
armed  forces  of  the  Rebellion  ceased  to  be  "State  troops," 
defending  State  rights  or  the  boundary  lines  or  the  territorial 
integrities  of  States. 

The  proclamation  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  therefore,  did  not  at  all 
refer  to  or  deal  with  commonwealths  or  communities,  or  even 
the  doctrine  of  secession,  but  with  unlawful  combinations  of 
individuals  banded  for  an  assault  upon  the  national  life  and 
the  plunder  of  national  property. 

While  the  States  of  the  Jsorth,  as  such,  were  called  upon  to 
furnish  their  quotas  of  militia^  the  same  summons  was  ad- 
dressed in  set  terms  to  such  of  the  border  and  Southern  States 
as  could  be  reached,  and  to  all  "  loyal  citizens,"  for  it  was  to 
the  people  as  a  mass  that  the  President  looked  for  support.  A 
feeble  cry  arose  in  some  quarters  that  the  judiciary  should  in 
some  manner  have  been  appealed  to,  but  the  cumbrous  machi- 
nery of  the  courts  was  set  aside  by  the  obvious  fact  of  its  in- 
sufficiency, and  the  cries  died  into  silence.  There  were  many 
who,  with  greater  appearance  of  sound  reason,  were  eager  for 
an  immediate  assembling  of  Congress ;  but,  in  Mr.  Lincoln's 
knowledge  and  perception,  a  large  part  of  the  membership  of 
that  body  had  need  of  special  education  through  the  sure  course 


228  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  coming  events  before  they  could  safely  be  trusted  to  help  or 
hinder.  The  wisest  heads  in  either  House  were  probably  the 
least  in  haste  to  meet  these  others  in  council.  The  day  for 
their  gathering  was  judiciously  and  firmly  postponed  accord- 
ingly. 

The  Executive  would  certainly  require  eighty  days  to  cut 
out  for  Congress  such  work  as  it  would  need  to  do  when  it 
should  assemble. 

The  proclamation  contains  but  one  breath  of  the  suppressed 
indignation  to  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had  given  no  utterance  dur- 
ing those  long  and  patient  days,  weeks,  months  of  waiting  and 
endurance.  The  forces  were  to  be  used  for  purposes  set  forth 
"  and  to  redress  wrongs  already  long  enough  endured." 

He  could  not  wisely  have  then  said  more ;  but  the  words 
meant  a  great  deal  coming  from  him. 

The  call  for  State  militia  was  nominally  based  upon  the  Act 
of  1795,  and  was  promptly  responded  to  by  the  governors  of 
all  the  free  States.  Yirginia  answered  by  "  seceding"  on  the 
17th  of  April,  in  secret  session  of  her  State  Convention,  and  in 
open  session  on  the  22d,  adding  an  empty  and  yet  to  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's military  plans  a  very  useful  provision  for  submitting  the 
question  to  a  popular  vote  on  the  23d  of  May.  North  Caro- 
lina, Arkansas,  and  Tennessee  rapidly  sent  back  similar  replies 
and  cast  their  fortunes  with  the  Rebellion.  The  governor  of 
Kentucky  returned  only  a  contemptuous  refusal  to  furnish  the 
quota  of  troops  called  for  by  the  President,  and  Maryland 
almost  immediately  blazed  out  into  open  and  dangerous  revolt. 

All  this  was  hardly  more  than  had  been  expected,  and  caused 
no  pang  of  disappointment ;  but  the  dark  and  threatening  pic- 
ture had  its  brighter  side.  The  people  of  the  North  had  heard 
the  Sumter  gun,  and  its  full  meaning  was  interpreted  to  them 
by  the  President's  proclamation.  Long  months  of  refusal  to 
believe  that  the  Secessionists  were  in  earnest, — months  of 
anxious  suspense  and  benumbing  doubt — were  terminated  fitly 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING.  229 

"by  a  few  short  hours  of  bewilderment.  Sunday  passed  under 
that  cloud,  but  on  Monday  morning,  April  15th,  the  Nation 
awoke,  and  accepted  the  war  for  the  Union  with  a  burst  of 
enthusiastic  patriotism  which  astonished  the  world.  Party 
lines  seemed  to  melt  away  in  the  fierce  heat  of  the  sudden  ex- 
citement. In  every  nook  and  corner  of  the  loyal  areas,  as  well 
as  in  the  larger  towns  and  cities,  men  nocked  together  by  a 
common  impulse,  eagerly  offering  themselves  to  defend  their 
country  in  what  to  them  was  its  suddenly  discovered  peril. 
Mothers  gave  their  sons ;  wives  hastened  the  steps  of  their 
husbands.  The  recruiting  offices  were  thronged  as  if  by  mobs. 
The  very  pulpits  and  prayer-meetings  were  all  on  fire  with  de- 
votion to  a  cause  which  at  once  took  upon  itself  sacredness,  as 
the  cause  of  the  whole  human  race  for  all  time  to  come,  sure  to 
have  the  blessing  of  Almighty  God.  If  armed  men  could 
have  telegraphed  themselves  to  Washington,  the  city  would 
have  been  garrisoned  instantaneously. 

The  first  visible  help  arrived  on  the  18th,  in  the  shape  of  one 
hastily  gathered  regiment  of  Pennsylvania  militia,  unarmed  and 
half  equipped.  They  had  been  hurried  off  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment,  and  passed  through  Baltimore  so  unexpectedly  as  to 
meet  no  open  opposition.  The  passions  whose  expression  their 
unarmed  ranks  barely  escaped  rose  hotly  behind  them  and  were 
only  too  well  prepared  for  the  next-comers. 

These  were  very  near.  On  the  morning  of  the  16th  of 
April  the  Massachusetts  Sixth  Regiment  mustered  upon  Bos- 
ton Common,  perfectly  equipped  for  action.  It  was  on  the 
cars  for  Washington  by  Wednesday  evening,  the  17th.  It 
passed  through  New  York  on  the  18th,  marching  down  Broad- 
way between  excited  thousands  on  either  hand,  and  singing  as 
it  swung  along  that  strange  refrain  which  had  arisen,  no  one 
knew  whence, — 


"  John  Brown's  body  lies  a-mould'ring  in  the  grave, 
His  soul  goes  marching  on  !" 


230  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Their  passage  through  the  great  commercial  center  of  the 
country  gave  a  sort  of  rallying-point  for  the  city's  loyalty, 
which  was  to  be  intensified  the  day  following  by  the  starting  of 
the  ISTew  York  Seventh  Regiment  for  the  beleaguered  national 
capital.  Meantime  the  Massachusetts  regiment  passed  on,  and 
on  the  morning  of  the  19th,  the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Lex- 
ington, it  entered  the  city  of  Baltimore,  Maryland.  A  misun- 
derstanding between  the  railway  officials  and  the  regimental 
commander  resulted  in  an  attempt  to  convey  the  troops  through 
the  city  in  the  cars  they  occupied,  so  dividing  their  strength 
and  caging  them  instead  of  giving  them  fair  play  as  a  solid  body. 

The  Baltimore  mob  was  braver  against  imprisoned  and  sepa- 
rated squads  than  it  would  have  been  against  a  strong  column 
of  marching  men.  A  murderous  assault  was  made  upon  these 
citizens  of  Massachusetts,  whose  only  offense,  even  against  a 
proslavery  mob,  was  the  obvious  fact  of  their  ready  patriotism. 
No  resistance  was  made  by  the  troops  until  self-preservation 
rendered  the  use  of  arms  compulsory.  There  was  some  firing 
done  ;  a  few  were  killed  and  more  were  wounded  on  both  sides ; 
the  city  police  came  to  the  rescue  and  did  their  duty  admirably, 
headed  by  the  mayor  and  the  city  marshal.  The  self-control 
and  disciplined  good  conduct  of  the  troops  is  emphasized  by  the 
fact  that  the  mayor  himself,  marching  at  their  head,  took  a  rule 
from  a  soldier  and  shot  down  one  of  the  rioters  whose  intem- 
perate zeal  was  prematurely  endangering  the  deep-laid  plot  of 
the  conspirators  for  the  secession  of  Maryland.  The  subse- 
quent course  of  both  mayor  and  marshal  threw  much  light 
upon  the  disaster  sustained  that  day  by  the  Confederacy  at  the 
hands  of  the  over-hasty  Baltimore  mob. 

The  regiment  made  its  way  through  and  reached  Washing- 
ton ;  and  the  Baltimore  gateway  to  the  North  was  shut  behind 
them :  but  this  was  before  the  men  who  closed  it  were  at  all 
prepared  to  keep  it  so. 

Still,  they  did  their  very  best  to  repair  their  error.  There 
had  been  many  public  secession-meetings  already  in  Balti- 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING.  231 

more  and  at  other  places  throughout  the  State.  That  very 
evening  a  monster  gathering  was  held  in  the  city,  and  the  evil 
spirit  of  the  mob  entered  into  and  took  possession  of  the  au- 
thorities. Even  the  governor  of  the  State,  hitherto  regarded  as 
unswervingly  "  loyal,"  openly  announced  his  readiness  to  "  bow 
to  the  will  of  the  people,"  and  declared  that  "  he  would  rather 
lose  his  right  arm  than  raise  it  to  strike  a  sister-State,"  mean- 
ing, of  course,  a  rebellious,  slave-holding  State.  The  militia  of 
Maryland  seemed,  therefore,  likely  indeed  to  be  called  out,  but 
not  to  be  put  under  the  command  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Hardly  an  hour  after  the  adjournment  of  the  meeting,  at 
midnight  of  the  19th,  secret  orders  went  out,  with  men  for 
their  execution,  headed  by  the  Baltimore  city  marshal,  to 
burn  the  nearest  bridges  leading  from  the  free  States  into 
Maryland.  Before  daylight  half  a  dozen  of  the  more  important 
bridges  had  been  destroyed ;  telegraph-wires  were  severed ; 
armed  patrols  were  riding  hither  and  thither ;  the  rebel  element 
throughout  the  State  was  notified  that  the  hour  to  strike  had 
come ;  and  the  city  of  Washington  was  placed  in  a  state  of 
semi-siege  between  an  organized  rebellion  and  a  bloodthirsty 
mob  in  swift  process  of  organization.  Had  there  been  one 
man  among  the  Maryland  rebels  fit  to  lead  a  battalion,  the  peril 
to  Washington  would  have  been  extreme.  They  had  a  surplus 
of  demagogues  but  no  leader. 

Such  were  some  of  the  first-fruits  of  the  proclamation. 
Precisely  similar  events,  large  and  small,  were  occurring  in  the 
West  and  Center,  but  their  recital  would  add  nothing  to  this 
illustration  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  position,  and  it  required  no  prophet 
to  predict  the  nature  of  those  which  now  must  shortly  follow. 

It  did  not  even  require  the  mind  of  a  statesman  or  a  mili- 
tary leader  to  understand  that  promptness  and  energy  on  the 
part  of  the  rebel  leaders,  coupled  with  a  moderate  degree  of 
the  unscrupulous  daring  they  had  already  exhibited,  would 
surely  result  in  the  capture  of  Washington.  They  had  formed 
the  purpose  so  definitely  and  indulged  the  hope  so  strongly 


232  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

that  the  Rebel  Secretary  of  War  publicly  asserted  that  the  Con- 
federate Stars  and  Bars  would  float  from  the  national  Capitol 
before  the  first  of  May.  He  could  not  have  set  forth  more 
plainly  the  fact  that  the  war  waged  by  himself  and  his  associates 
was  essentially  a  war  of  aggression  and  conquest  and  not  at  all 
for  the  mere  defense  of  imperiled  State  lines.  He  did  but 
underrate  his  ability  to  move  troops  to  North  Carolina  and  Vir- 
ginia, forget  the  only  half-seceded  position  of  the  latter  State, 
and  overestimate  the  capacity  and  courage  of  the  Maryland  con- 
spirators. The  latter,  indeed,  were  frightened  and  disconcerted 
unreasonably  by  the  premature  explosion  of  their  own  mob. 

Virginia,  still  nominally  acting  as  an  independent  State,  re- 
sponded to  the  supposed  necessities  of  Maryland  by  sending 
on  at  once  two  thousand  muskets  and  promising  twenty  heavy 
guns.  She  was  urged  to  this  by  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  even  be- 
fore the  adoption  by  the  people  of  her  formal  act  of  secession. 

In  spite  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  confidence  and  courage,  and  the 
unflinching  patriotism  of  those  around  him,  these  were  anxious 
days  in  the  capital  of  the  Republic.  The  very  office-seekers 
called  for  arms  and  formed  temporary  military  organizations. 
They  encamped  in  the  halls  of  public  buildings,  in  the  legisla- 
tive chambers  at  the  Capitol,  and  in  the  reception-rooms  of  the 
Executive  Mansion.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  numbers  and 
military  efficiency  of  these  brave  and  willing  but  entirely  un- 
disciplined mobs  were  happily  exaggerated  in  the  minds  of  the 
rebel  authorities. 

Mr.  Lincoln  went  on  steadily,  unswervingly,  with  the  tre- 
mendous work  he  had  on  hand.  His  faith  in  the  patriotism  of 
the  loyal  people  was  absolutely  unbounded,  and  he  framed  all 
measures  accordingly.  Every  hour  that  passed  saw  the  vast 
machinery  of  the  new  government  he  was  creating  take  form 
and  order  under  his  diligent  direction,  and  the  preparations 
made  for  the  days  to  come  were  on  a  plan  both  broad  and  deep. 
Man  after  man  was  chosen,  appointed,  and  ordered  to  duty. 
The  several  departments  were  alive  with  busy  and  trustworthy 


THE  ORE  AT  AWAKENING.  233 

toilers,  while  in  almost  every  room  of  every  civic  bureau  there 
appeared  some  ominous  token,  such  as  a  rifle  and  a  cartridge- 
box,  that  its  occupant  was  prepared  to  defend  his  right  to  be 
there.  There  was  at  least  no  opportunity  left  for  the  arising 
of  a  pro-slavery  mob  in  Washington,  or  for  the  success  of  any 
other  than  a  well-led  attack  by  a  competent  and  disciplined 
force  of  the  public  enemy.  Mere  militia  and  guerrillas  would 
indeed  have  been  out  of  the  question,  but  the  Confederate 
leaders  must  have  strangely  miscalculated  their  resources  in  not 
being  ready  to  avail  themselves  of  an  opportunity  so  golden. 

It  was  rapidly  slipping  away  from  them,  never  to  return. 
The  Eighth  Massachusetts  Regiment  arrived  in  Philadelphia 
April  19th,  under  command  of  General  Butler,  and  the  New 
York  Seventh,  under  Colonel  Lefferts,  on  the  20th. 

These  troops  were  thoroughly  drilled  and  equipped,  and 
quite  capable  of  facing  and  scattering  any  mob ;  but  it  would 
have  been  a  foolish  deed  to  waste  one  life  among  them  in  the 
streets  of  Baltimore.  It  would  also  have  been  a  political  and 
military  blunder.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  bitterly  blamed  at  the  time 
for  "  not  forcing  a  passage  and  teaching  the  rebels  a  lesson ;" 
but  he  had  not  lost  an  atom  of  his  calm,  wise  courage.  He 
knew  how  much  of  the  current  feeling  in  Baltimore  and 
throughout  Maryland  was  mere  excitement  and  temporary 
effervescence.  He  knew  it  would  cool  and  subside  unless  some- 
thing hot  and  hasty  should  be  done  to  keep  it  stirred  up.  He 
is  said  to  have  "  yielded  to  the  urgent  request  of  the  governor" 
that  no  more  troops  should  be  forwarded  through  Maryland 
and  especially  through  Baltimore.  He  did  nothing  of  the  kind. 
He  did  but  follow  the  dictates  of  the  plainest  common-sense 
and  refuse  to  be  influenced  by  resentment  or  passion,  or  by  the 
counsels  of  angry  patriots  who  were  not — as  he  was — directly 
responsible  for  consequences. 

The  two  Union  commanders  were  promptly  informed  of  the 
bridge-burning  and  of  the  fact  that  another  road  could  be 
opened  to  Washington  by  way  of  Annapolis  and  Chesapeake 


234  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Bay.  They  set  out  at  once  by  different  routes,  Gen.  Butler 
arriving  at  Annapolis  on  the  21st,  and  Colonel  Lefferts  on  the 
22d.  As  a  matter  of  course  they  were  met  by  a  protest  from 
the  governor  of  Maryland  warning  them  not  to  land ;  but  the 
protest  had  no  troops  behind  it  and  .occasioned  no  delay  in  get- 
ting the  two  regiments  on  shore.  The  governor  also  at  once 
adolressed  a  letter  to  the  President,  asking  that  the  troops 
should  be  promptly  removed.  He  also  betrayed  his  bewil- 
dered state  of  mind  by  suggesting  that  the  British  Minister 
should  be  requested  to  "  mediate"  between  the  national  gov- 
ernment and  its  rebels  in  arms. 

Through  windows  like  this  insane  suggestion  it  is  possible  to 
obtain  a  view  of  the  existing  vagueness  of  ideas,  in  the  minds 
of  even  educated  men,  as  to  the  very  first  principles  of  national 
entity  and  human  government.  An  answer  was  sent  through 
the  Secretary  of  State,  and  the  troops  were  not  removed. 

The  New  York  Seventh  was  ordered  to  "Washington,  and 
General  Butler  remained  to  keep  open  the  gateway  to  the 
North.  He  made  it  much  wider  in  a  few  days.  So  small  was 
the  disposable  force  at  Washington  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  few 
men  to  spare  to  hold  the  road  by  which  the  Seventh  was  to 
come.  There  was  a  serious  doubt  if  the  District  militia,  now 
sworn  in  as  three-months  volunteers,  could  be  depended  upon 
for  service  outside  of  the  narrow  area  they  supposed  them- 
selves sworn  to  defend.  Two  companies  only,  "  A"  and  "  B," 
of  the  third  battalion,  the  National  Rifles  and  the  German 
company  before  mentioned,  volunteered  their  services,  and 
those  who  saw  them  march  away  looked  upon  their  undertak- 
ing as  a  sort  of  "  forlorn  hope."  They  did  their  duty  without 
discovering  any  danger,  and  the  Seventh  arrived  in  safety  on  the 
25th.  The  exuberant  hopes  of  the  "Washington  secessionists 
went  down  somewhat  as  those  faultless  lines  of  bayonets  came 
glittering  down  the  avenue  to  pass  in  review  before  the  Presi- 
dent. Still,  as  before,  so  then  and  afterwards,  the  secessionists 
were  freely  permitted  to  speak  treason  and  write  it,  and  to 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING.  235 

come  and  go  unhindered.  Nothing  else  really  galled  some  of 
them  quite  so  much  as  this  feature  of  indifference  in  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's policy. 

During  all  this  time  the  rebel  flag  floated  from  the  roof  of 
Arlington  House,  the  family  mansion  of  General  Lee,  just 
across  the  Potomac,  in  full  view  of  the  city.  The  proposal  of 
a  squad  of  the  District  militia  to  go  and  take  it  down  was  in- 
stantly negatived  as  an  unwise  irritation  of  the  people  of  Vir- 
ginia. The  "guard"  for  the  defense  of  the  Long  Bridge 
over  the  Potomac  never  numbered  more  than  twenty  men  at  a 
time,  prior  to  the  25th  of  April. 

On  the  20th,  with  or  without  good  reason,  the  great  navy- 
yard  at  Gosport,  Virginia,  was  burned  and  abandoned  by  the 
small  national  force  in  charge  of  it,  with  all  its  costly  appli- 
ances and  a  number  of  ships  upon  which  the  rebel  government 
had  securely  counted  as  the  commencement  of  its  "  navy."  A 
similar  fate  had  overtaken  the  United  States  arsenal  at  Har- 
per's Ferry,  Virginia,  on  the  18th.  In  the  West  a  state  of  af- 
fairs existed  which  imitated  remarkably  the  local  chaos  at  the 
corresponding  points  in  the  East.  Everywhere  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  appealed  to  by  both  friends  and  enemies,  and  at  every 
point  he  exhibited  the  same  steadiness,  good  temper,  and  sound 
judgment.  It  was  a  task  of  extraordinary  difficulty,  and  the 
results  obtained  bear  striking  witness  of  its  wise  and  faithful 
performance. 

The  Annapolis  route  to  Washington  continued  open,  nor 
could  there  now  be  any  successful  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
Maryland  secessionists  to  prevent  further  reinforcements  of  all 
sorts  from  pouring  into  the  city  they  had  so  narrowly  failed  to 
win.  They  still  retained  undisputed  control  of  Baltimore  and 
of  the  greater  part  of  the  State,  but  were  not  able  to  receive 
further  supplies  of  military  material  from  the  South.  At  the 
same  time,  numbers  of  their  most  active  and  dangerous  spirits 
were  continually  leaving  them  to  seek  employment  in  the  army 
under  Jefferson  Davis.  The  State  Legislature  was  in  session 


236  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

at  Frederick,  but  contained  just  enough  of  loyal  leaven,  acting 
with  and  upon  its  "  conservative"  and  timid  elements,  to  induce 
delay  and  irresolution  in  all  its  action  until  the  hour  for  suc- 
cessful treason  had  gone  by. 

President  Lincoln  authorized  General  Butler  to  suspend  the 
writ  of  habeas  corpus  in  certain  districts,  but  no  strictly  mili- 
tary movement  was  attempted  until  May  13.  Then,  under 
cover  of  a  storm  and  the  approach  of  night,  General  Butler, 
with  less  than  a  thousand  men,  suddenly  entered  Baltimore, 
seized  a  position  from  which  his  guns  commanded  the  city,  and 
effected  a  complete  capture  of  it  without  the  loss  of  a  man. 
It  was  a  deed  the  success  of  which  justified  its  apparently  reck- 
less daring. 

The  "  siege  of  "Washington"  was  raised,  the  State  of  Mary- 
land was  forever  lost  to  the  Confederacy,  and  its  population 
generally,  if  slowly,  ranged  themselves  among  the  assured  sup- 
porters of  the  national  authority.  The  possible  line  of  subse- 
quent conflict  at  once  drifted  Southward  from  the  banks  of 
the  Chesapeake  to  those  of  the  Potomac,  and  the  entire  aspect 
of  affairs  changed. 

A  striking  illustration  of  the  difficulty  under  which  Mr.  Lin- 
coln began  his  work  and  the  darkness  he  was  in  as  to  whom  he 
could  employ  and  trust  as  servants  of  the  new  government  is 
afforded  by  the  case  of  Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee,  of  the  regular 
army.  So  complete  had  been  the  confidence  reposed  in  this 
man's  honor  and  patriotism,  and  so  carefully  had  he  abstained 
from  giving  any  token  of  disloyalty,  that,  as  late  as  April  20, 
he  was  informally  offered  the  command  of  the  Union  forces 
about  to  take  the  field.  His  response  was  a  resignation  of  his 
commission  in  the  army,  dated  the  same  day.  Three  days  later 
he  was  formally  installed  as  commander  of  the  State  forces  of 
Virginia.  These  were  turned  over  to  the  "  Army  of  the  Con- 
federacy" on  the  24th  of  May,  and  he  with  them,  to  receive  at 
once  a  commission  as  full "  general"  under  the  Rebel  flag.  No 
doubt  he  acted  in  accordance  with  his  ideas  of  his  duty  to  the 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING.  237 

State  in  which  he  had  happened  to  be  born  and  which  was 
more  sacred  in  his  eyes  than  was  the  government  to  which  he 
had  sworn  allegiance ;  but  his  course  throws  a  lurid  light  upon 
the  harassing  perils  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  position.  "While  such 
lessons  of  caution  as  this  were  daily  given  and  received  in  the 
most  surprising  manner,  a  wise  reticence  kept  most  of  them 
from  the  immediate  knowledge  of  the  nation  at  large. 

The  President's  proclamation  called  for  State  militia,  in 
nominal  accordance  with  laws  which  were  considered  by  many 
jurists  to  be  severely  strained  by  the  summons.  The  troops 
were  rapidly  coming  forward,  but  the  force  they  would  consti- 
tute could  be  but  little  better  than  a  temporary  expedient,  as 
their  term  of  service  was  but  ninety  days.  The  entire  atten- 
tion of  the  public  mind  was  concentrated  upon  and  absorbed 
by  the  several  State  contingents,  and  small  notice  was  bestowed 
upon  a  much  more  important  exercise  of  the  latent  powers  of 
the  national  executive. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  experience  in  the  Blackhawk  War,  brief  as  it 
was,  had  taught  him  a  vitally  important  lesson  as  to  the  nature, 
value,  and  melting-away  tendencies  of  all  such  extemporized 
armies.  Neither  had  he  read  the  history  of  the  Revolutionary 
War  so  carefully  in  his  boyhood,  without  storing  his  mind  with 
its  most  important  military  Isssons.  Precisely  the  difficulties 
which  at  times  so  paralyzed  the  genius  of  Washington  were 
right  before  him  now,  and  he  prepared  for  them  in  advance. 

Volunteers  were  freely  offering,  all  over  the  North,  and  it 
was  but  ten  days  after  issuing  the  proclamation,  or  on  April 
26,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  out  official  notifications  through 
the  War  Department  that  a  certain  number  of  these,  44,034, 
would  be  accepted  "for  three  years  or  during  the  war."  He 
had  no  warrant  of  law,  apparently,  for  any  increase  of  the  reg- 
ular army  or  navy,  but  he  had  at  the  same  time  called  for 
22,714  "  regulars"  and  18,000  seamen. 

All  this  was  somewhat  quietly  done ;  but  the  Northern  allies 
of  the  rebels  in  arms  did  not  fail  to  express  their  opinion  of  it 


238  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

openly  and  very  freely.  In  their  eyes,  and  as  expressed  by 
their  tongues  and  pens,  it  was  the  unscrupulous  deed  of  a 
tyrant,  a  dictator,  a  would-be  autocrat.  There  was  in  it,  in- 
deed, a  good  deal  of  that  patriotic  autocracy  which  refused  to 
let  the  nation  lie  still  and  be  murdered  while  thousands  of 
willing  hearts  were  offering  strong  hands  to  defend  it. 

The  acceptances  of  men  were  by  no  means  rigidly  limited  to 
the  terms  of  the  first  War  Office  orders,  and  it  was  soon  safe 
to  say  that  there  would  be  an  army  in  the  field  after  the  militia 
regiments  should  serve  their  time  and  go  home. 

After  all,  one  of  the  most  important  matters  was  that  noth- 
ing should  be  done  too  audaciously  startling  and  suggestive  of 
"  aggression  and  invasion." 

The  incipient  rebellion  in  Maryland  was  now  completely 
crushed.  The  dangerous  elements  were  weeded  out  of  the 
State  Legislature,  a  little,  by  a  few  salutary  arrests.  There 
was  no  longer  any  peril  threatening  the  city  of  Washington  in 
the  rear.  Nevertheless,  the  Confederate  flag  still  flaunted  in 
the  face  of  the  national  capital  from  the  roof  of  Arlington 
House  as  late  as  May  23,  eighty  days  after  President  Lincoln's 
inauguration.  There  was  nothing  except  the  date  of  the  Vir- 
ginia election  to  prevent  the  planting  of  a  rebel  battery  in 
General  Lee's  front  yard.  Such  a  battery  would  have  been 
within  easy  range  of  all  the  government  buildings,  and  would 
have  commanded  the  Long  Bridge  over  the  Potomac,  with  all 
its  northern  approaches.  The  range  of  low  elevations  on  the 
Virginia  shore  of  the  Potomac  was  evidently  calling  loudly  for 
occupation.  Advices  from  the  South  added  strength  to  all 
considerations  based  upon  military  science,  but  not  one  step 
was  visibly  taken  which  could  appear  to  threaten,  much  less  to 
assail,  "  the  rights  of  a  sovereign  State,"  until  she  should  for- 
mally divest  herself  of  them.  No  solitary  Virginia  voter  was 
afforded  a  fresh  pretext  for  casting  his  misguided  ballot  in  favor 
of  the  "  Ordinance  of  Secession." 


OVER  THE  LONG-  BRIDGE.  239 


CHAPTEE  XXX. 

OVEK   THE   LONG   BKIDGE. 

Kespects  for  State  Rights  —  Secession  of  Virginia  —  Union  Advance  across 
the  Potomac  —  Death  of  Ellsworth  —  The  Beginning  in  West  Virginia 
—  The  Old  Flag  disappears  from  the  South  —  White  House  Life  —  War- 
time Illusions  —  Studies  of  future  Battle-grounds  —  A  Funeral  in  the  East 
Koom. 


could  well  exceed  the  closeness  with  which  Mr. 
Lincoln  watched  the  course  of  events  at  the  South,  or  the  logical 
sequence  of  the  steps  which  he  took  in  pursuance  of  each 
and  every  movement  made  by  his  adversaries.  Up  to  this  last 
hour,  he  had  neither  done  nor  authorized  any  proceeding,  as  to 
Yirginia,  which  the  most  fanatical  expounder  of  "  State  rights" 
could  reasonably  call  in  question. 

There  was  a  small  guard  kept,  to  be  sure,  at  the  Long  Bridge 
over  the  Potomac,  to  prevent  its  very  possible  destruction,  but 
there  was  no  vexatious  interference  with  travel  and  traffic  or 
even  with  the  passage  of  Maryland  stray  volunteers  for  the 
rebel  army.  More  than  once,  after  nightfall,  the  squad  of 
Union  soldiers  in  charge  at  that  point  went  hilariously  over  and 
hobnobbed  with  the  Virginia  State  militia  similarly  posted  at 
the  old  tavern  on  the  other  shore,  and  were  hardly  reprimanded 
by  their  officers  for  so  doing.  Even  in  the  serious  matters  of 
the  Gosport  navy-yard  and  the  Harper's  Ferry  arsenal,  all 
pains  were  taken  to  avoid  any  open  collision  with  the  forces 
sent  by  the  governor  of  Yirginia  for  their  seizure.  Forbear- 
ance was  carried  to  the  utmost  limit  of  endurance,  but  there  it 
expired,  strictly  by  limitation. 

In  accordance  with  the  action  of  the  Yirginia  State  Conven- 


240  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

tion,  the  question  of  the  secession  of  the  State  was  submitted 
to  a  popular  vote  on  the  23d  of  May.  Except  in  what  now 
constitutes  the  State  of  "West  Virginia,  no  such  thing  as  a  fair 
and  free  expression  of  the  popular  will  was  possible,  for  mili- 
tary movements  had  begun  and  military  domination  rendered 
the  so-called  "  vote"  a  mere  matter  of  form.  There  was  little 
use  in  counting  such  a  preordained  collection  as  were  those 
heaps  of  ballots. 

Nevertheless,  although  General  Lee  assumed  command  of 
the  State  troops  on  the  23d  of  April,  and  all  men  knew  the  use 
he  would  surely  make  of  them,  they  could  not  be  and  were  not 
turned  over  to  the  Confederate  army,  so  losing  their  character 
as  "  State"  troops,  until  the  24th  of  May.  The  Confederate 
leaders  were  therefore  yet  in  some  degree  hindered  by  the  con- 
stitutional and  legal  technicalities  whose  spirit  and  letter  had 
been  so  much  more  carefully  regarded  by  Mr.  Lincoln. 

They  were  themselves  seemingly  prompt  enough  in  their 
operations,  so  soon  as  their  hands  were  untied,  but  they  were 
not  at  all  prepared  for  the  electric  suddenness  and  energy  of 
his  final  action. 

The  Yirginia  Convention's  Act  of  Secession  was  duly  con- 
firmed by  the  formal  election-returns,  not  yet  made  up  but 
perfectly  well  known,  at  the  setting  of  the  sun  on  May  23, 
1861.  Within  one  hour  afterwards  there  were  columns  of 
United  States  troops  in  motion  towards  the  Northern  shore  of 
the  Potomac  and  the  "Washington  end  of  the  Long  Bridge. 
Before  midnight  a  light  force  of  scouts  and  skirmishers  crossed 
the  bridge  and  began  to  feel  their  way  down  towards  Alexan- 
dria. This  advance  consisted  of  but  one  company,  barely  sixty 
men  all  told,  and  all  the  armed  opposition  they  met  or  saw  was 
a  mere  squad  of  mounted  Yirginia  militia  who  rode  hurriedly 
away  without  firing  a  shot.  By  two  o'clock  A.M.,  the  same 
night,  three  full  regiments  had  crossed  the  Potomac  at  George- 
town, D.  C.;  four  more  by  the  Long  Bridge ;  and  one,  Ells- 
worth's Zouaves,  had  gone  directly  to  Alexandria  by  steamer, 


OVER  THE  LONG  BRIDGE.  241 

with  one  war-vessel  as  a  convoy.  By  daylight  every  position 
aimed  at  had  been  occupied  without  hindrance.  The  stupid 
murder  of  the  brave  and  lamented  Ellsworth  by  a  tavern- 
keeper  in  Alexandria  was  merely  an  expression  of  individual 
ferocity,  such  as  afterwards  made  severe  measures  necessary  at 
times  in  dealing  with  certain  elements  of  the  population  of  the 
South. 

Forty-eight  hours  later  two  regiments  from  General  Mc- 
Clellan's  command  crossed  into  Western  Virginia  at  Wheeling, 
to  support  the  Union  men  who  were  rising  throughout  that 
region  to  defend  themselves  against  Secession  tyranny. 

The  soldiers  of  the  Union  had  come  to  stay,  for  the  first 
duty  imposed  upon  those  who  had  crossed  the  Potomac  at 
Washington  was  the  construction  of  strong  earthworks  upon, 
the  heights  commanding  the  approaches  to  the  city.  Even  the- 
New  York  Seventh,  the  kid-gloved  favorites  of  the  great  me- 
tropolis, were  at  work  with  pick  and  spade  on  the  "  sacred  soil 
of  Virginia,"  in  the  early  morning  of  the  day  after  the  old, 
commonwealth  surrendered  its  immunities  as  such  and  became; 
a  part  of  the  new  organism  which  styled  itself  the  "  Confeder- 
ate States  of  America." 

A  similar  comparison  of  dates  with  acts  and  occurrences  of 
varied  nature  and  locality  would  present  a  similar  teaching, 
but  here  is  quite  enough  to  illustrate  clearly  the  sagacious  pre- 
vision and  careful  preparation  which  were  concealed  under 
what  was  then  considered  by  many  "  Mr.  Lincoln's  unaccount- 
able dilatoriness." 

He  was  forbidden  the  luxury  of  explaining  his  plans  and 
purposes  to  the  general  public,  including  the  public  enemy. 
His  immediate  advisers  were  not  talking  men,  then  or  after- 
wards. He  was  compelled  to  steer  carefully  between  the  con- 
tinuous perils  of  over-haste  and  loss  of  time.  In  those  all-im- 
portant first  days  of  the  long  struggle,  while  paying  no  undue 
regard  to  legal  technicalities  of  any  kind,  the  twin-perils  re- 
ferred to  contained  in  themselves  the  necessity  that  no  com- 


242  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

munity  or  population  should  be  treated  as  in  rebellion  until  it 
had  formally  become  so  by  its  own  express  act  and  word. 

So  far  as  State  Conventions  and  Legislatures  and  their  sup- 
plementary actions  were  concerned,  the  work  of  Secession  was 
now  complete.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  on  the  first  day  of 
June,  1861,  the  flag  of  the  United  States  floated  over  only 
these  few  spots  throughout  all  the  vast  territory  ruled  by 
President  Jefferson  Davis  :  the  camps  opposite  Washington ; 
Fortress  Monroe,  Virginia ;  Fort  Pickens,  Key  West,  and  Gar- 
den Key,  in  the  State  of  Florida.  (West  Virginia  and  East 
Tennessee  can  hardly  be  counted  as  having  been  at  any  time  or 
by  their  own  will  part  and  parcel  of  the  Confederacy,  and  are 
therefore  excepted.)  From  every  other  place,  fort,  navy-yard, 
arsenal,  public  building,  private  house,  it  had  disappeared,  and 
the  vast  majority  of  the  people  of  the  civilized  world  believed 
that  it  had  so  disappeared  forever.  What  is  sometimes  de- 
scribed by  politicians  as  "a  good  working  majority  and  no 
more"  of  the  people  of  the  free  States  were  utterly  deter- 
:mined  that  it  should  one  day  go  back  again. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  now  been  in  Washington  three  full  months, 
:and  the  routine  movement  of  his  daily  life  had  become  well 
•established.  He, had  not  materially  changed  his  personal  habits. 
He  was  as  careless  as  ever  concerning  his  dress,  and  retained 
Ms  free,  familiar  ways  with  his  nearer  friends.  His  distaste 
was  as  strong  as  ever  for  mere  ceremonial,  social  formalities, 
etiquette  of  rank,  outward  insignia  of  place  and  power.  He 
increased  with  iron  endurance  his  steady,  tireless  industry,  his 
patient  investigation  of  all  subjects  which  his  duties,  present  or 
to  come,  might  bring  before  him.  It  was  needful  that  he 
should  not  be  too  easy  of  access ;  but  if  he  had  business  at  any 
bureau  of  any  Department,  he  was  not  at  all  unlikely  to  attend 
to  it  in  person.  He  more  than  once  did  so,  somewhat  to  the 
discomfiture  of  inattentive  subordinates. 

He  labored  under  one  disadvantage,  perhaps,  as  a  ruler.  If 
he  met  a  governor,  a  general,  a  foreign  diplomat,  a  visitor  of 


OVER   THE  LONG  BRIDGE.  243 

especial  distinction,  it  was  out  of  his  power  to  look  upon  the 
great  personage  before  him  as  other  or  more  or  less  than  a 
human  being  like  himself  or  any  other  man  so  to  be  met  and 
spoken  to.  Some  of  the  dissatisfaction  caused  in  this  way  has 
been  duly  recorded  by  the  sufferers. 

He  retained  in  all  its  freshness  his  love  for  children.  If  a 
child  was  led  past  him  at  a  public  "  reception,"  he  was  apt  to 
take  it  up  and  kiss  it  and  give  it  a  kind  word  as  simply  and  even 
a  little  more  eagerly  than  if  he  had  met  the  child  of  some  old 
neighbor  on  the  sidewalk  of  his  own  street  in  Springfield. 

The  business  offices  of  the  Executive  Mansion  were  in  the 
second  story,  and  were  but  three  in  number,  with  ante-rooms 
for  the  accommodation  of  visitors  in  waiting.  One  very  large 
room,  fronting  southward,  had  been  "  the  President's  room" 
ever  since  the  house  was  built.  Next  to  this,  on  the  east,  was 
a  narrow  room  in  which  the  Private  Secretary  performed  his 
double  duty  of  defending  the  President  from  needless  intrusion 
and  of  acting  almost  as  a  second  President  in  a  host  of  minor 
matters.  Across  the  hall  was  another  room  of  like  dimensions, 
occupied  by  the  two  assistant  secretaries  and  such  clerical  help 
as  was  sometimes  given  them.  To  this  latter  room,  indeed, 
Mr.  Lincoln  sometimes  fled  for  refuge  from  the  pressure  he 
could  not  escape  in  his  own.  Adjoining  this  was  a  large  sleep- 
ing-room, also  sometimes  temporarily  applied  to  more  strictly 
official  uses. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  shown  his  usual  wisdom  in  selecting  the 
confidential  servants  of  his  own  office.  They  were  all  young 
men  of  sufficient  capacity  and  education  for  their  duties,  but 
were  without  other  associations  or  ambitions  than  such  as 
bound  them  to  himself.  He  could  and  did  put  utter  con- 
fidence in  them,  and  there  was  in  the  feeling  with  which  they 
all  regarded  him  something  quite  as  strong  as  any  tie  of  blood 
could  possibly  have  been. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  old  friend  Colonel  Ward  H.  Lamon,  and  after- 
wards other  officials,  had  at  first  somewhat  of  the  external  man- 


244  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

agement  of  social  "  state  affairs"  in  the  White  House,  but  they 
were  not  actual  members  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  small  and  unpre- 
tending household.  Only  his  family  and  its  guests  took  their 
meals  in  the  house. 

From  the  very  beginning  Mrs.  Lincoln  assumed  and  held  her 
rightful  position  as  lady  of  the  mansion ;  nor  was  it  always  easy 
to  designate  the  precise  limit  of  her  authority.  It  was  never 
in  the  world  easy  to  do  this  as  to  the  wife  of  any  private  citi- 
zen, the  lady  having  a  will  of  her  own.  An  understanding  of 
the  fact  that  neither  Mr.  nor  Mrs.  Lincoln  for  a  long  time  fully 
grasped  the  idea  that  they  were  no  longer  "  private  citizens" 
furnishes  a  complete  key  to  the  solution  of  much  which  then 
and  afterwards  excited  curious  comment. 

Much  more  than  most  of  those  around  him,  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
internally  formulated  his  clear  comprehension  of  the  intense 
and  stern  realities  with  which  he  was  dealing.  Crowds  of  eager 
applicants  begged  and  pleaded  and  all  but  fought  with  one 
another  for  the  offices  in  his  gift.  Deputations  called  upon 
him  to  express  in  various  ways  the  exuberance  of  their  patriot- 
ism. Regiment  after  regiment  came  marching  gayly  down 
Pennsylvania  Avenue  and  passed  in  glittering  review  before 
him  with  a  sort  of  "  picnic  and  Fourth  of  July"  expression 
upon  their  bright  and  brave  young  faces.  Those  about  to  die 
saluted  him  as  if  he  had  summoned  them  to  some  grand  holi- 
day excursion. 

Upon  one  and  all  he  looked  sadly,  kindly,  earnestly,  through 
eyes  that  were  dim  with  seeing,  far  beyond  their  serried  ranks 
and  silken  flags,  the  torn  and  bloody  turf,  the  scattered  corpses, 
the  lifting  powder-smoke  of  the  inevitable  battle-fields  to  come. 

In  the  large  room  where  he  worked  through  all  the  days 
and  half  through  all  the  nights  there  was  but  little  furniture. 
What  there  was  had  an  old-time  and  half-faded  look,  and  no 
great  part  of  it  had  been  added  or  altered  since  the  days  of 
President  Jackson.  The  marks  of  the  feet  of  that  strong- 
headed  enemy  of  treason  and  secession  were  plainly  visible 


OVER  THE  LONG  BRIDGE.  345 

upon  the  bricks  above  the  fireplace  until  these  were  removed. 
The  favorite  chair  of  the  old  hero,  an  easy,  oddly  shaped  affair 
of  Mexican  manufacture,  was  one  of  the  heirlooms  of  the  office 
from  -which  he  had  bearded  the  South  Carolina  "  nullifiers"  of 
his  own  time. 

In  one  corner  of  the  room  was  an  upright  frame  of  wood, 
upon  which  were  many  maps,  conveniently  mounted  on  spring- 
rollers.  To  this  were  afterwards  added  others  of  similar  pat- 
tern. Folios  of  maps  leaned  against  the  walls  or  hid  behind 
the  sofas.  Volumes  of  military  history  and  kindred  literature 
came  and  went  from  various  libraries  and  had  their  days  of 
lying  around  the  room  or  on  the  President's  table.  He  was  an 
early  riser  and  was  apt  to  be  at  his  toil  before  the  humblest 
clerk  on  the  national  pay-rolls  had  eaten  his  breakfast.  That 
of  the  Chief  Magistrate  was  very  frequently  brought  to  him  in 
his  office  that  he  might  lose  no  time,  for  now,  as  always,  from 
his  log-house  cradle,  he  was  a  hard  student.  He  knew  every 
river,  mountain-range,  creek,  hill,  valley,  on  the  broad  areas 
through  which  the  tides  of  the  war  were  to  ebb  and  flow. 
More  than  that,  he  made  himself  better  than  ever  acquainted 
with  the  constituent  elements  of  the  local  populations,  their 
industries,  tendencies,  origins,  wealths  or  poverties.  No  man 
living  was  endowed  with  a  better  capacity  to  digest,  assimilate, 
and  employ  the  multiform  information  he  sought  out  so  per- 
severingly.  How  important  all  this  laborious  study  was  to  the 
nation  can  only  be  approximately  estimated  by  means  of  an 
attempt  to  grasp  and  imagine  the  possible  consequences  of  its 
neglect  and  absence.  The  ruin,  disgrace,  misery,  which  would 
surely  have  resulted  from  ignorance-in-power  striving  to  per- 
form the  functions  devolved  upon  Mr.  Lincoln,  form  a  picture 
from  which  the  coldest  critic  might  be  glad  to  turn  away. 

About  one  year  later,  in  a  private  note  to  General  McClellan, 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  able  to  say  of  an  order  he  had  given  and  was 
defending:  "I  ordered  ...  on  the  unanimous  opinion  of 
every  military  man  I  could  get  an  opinion  from,  and  every 


246  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


modern  rmlita/ry  J00&,  —  yourself  only  excepted."  How  many 
hours  of  intense,  absorbed,  brain-wearying  application  are  im- 
plied in  that  simple  but  pregnant  sentence  ! 

There  was  something  almost  dreamlike  and  unreal  about  life 
in  Washington  for  most  men  during  those  first  three  months 
of  the  new  government.  The  very  excitement  and  the  tense- 
ness of  the  strain  in  which  men's  minds  were  held  removed 
the  life  they  were  living  so  far  away  from  any  life  which  any 
of  them  had  ever  before  lived  or  thought  of  living. 

The  hazy  atmosphere  of  semi-tragic  unreality  pervaded  at 
last  even  the  White  House  itself.  The  bright  spring  weather 
aided  the  effect  of  the  increasing  glitter  of  uniforms  and  flutter 
of  flags  and  the  all  but  ceaseless  flow  and  crash  of  martial 
music  from  the  noisy  bands  of  the  arriving  regiments. 

There  had  been  no  battle  fought  since  Fort  Sumter  was 
bombarded,  and  there  were  not  wanting  false  prophets  of 
peace  to  chirrup  gayly  that  there  would  be  no  actual  blood- 
shed. 

Through  all  this  over-strained,  unnatural,  feverish,  misty 
state  of  things  came  suddenly  the  tramp  of  the  movement 
across  the  Potomac  on  the  24th  of  May.  Virginia  threw 
open  her  gates  by  a  vote  of  her  people,  and  the  Union  troops 
marched  in  :  but  precious  blood  was  spilled  upon  the  threshold. 

The  shot  fired  murderously  by  the  Alexandria  tavern-keeper 
struck  a  mark  in  the  very  household  of  the  President.  Colonel 
Ellsworth  was  but  a  boy  of  twenty-four,  but  he  had  won  the 
admiration  of  the  entire  country  by  his  genius  and  energy. 
He  had  journeyed  to  Washington  with  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had 
become  warmly  attached  to  him,  and  shortly  afterwards  ap- 
pointed him  a  second-lieutenant  in  the  regular  army.  The 
regiment  he  raised  among  the  firemen  of  New  York,  under 
the  call  for  volunteers,  was  considered  second  to  none  in  its 
promise  of  usefulness  under  such  a  commander.  He  was  a 
type  and  personal  embodiment  of  the  young  manhood  which 
was  springing  forward  at  the  call  of  their  country's  peril.  He 


OVER  THE  LONG  BRIDGE.  247 

was,  as  such  type  and  representative,  to  offer  a  bloody  illustra- 
tion of  the  true  meaning  of  the  summons. 

The  Sunday  before  the  eventful  day,  Ellsworth  was  at  the 
"White  House,  less  as  a  guest  than  as  a  well-loved  member  of 
the  household.  To  the  same  place  his  body  was  borne  after 
the  murder,  and  the  funeral  ceremonies  were  held  in  the 
gaudy  "  East  Koom,"  sadly  dressed  and  draped  for  the  occa- 
sion. 

That  Mr.  Lincoln  grieved  for  his  bright,  genial,  gifted  young 
friend ;  that  all  the  sorrow  he  expressed  for  him  was  real,  re- 
quires no  saying.  Nevertheless,  to  him  as  to  the  people  gen- 
erally, the  death  of  Ellsworth  marked  the  end  of  a  worn-out 
policy  and  the  beginning  of  a  new  order  of  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings. 

A  splendid  regiment  of  "Ellsworth  Avengers,"  the  44th 
~New  York  Volunteers,  was  speedily  formed,  but  the  blood 
upon  the  Virginia  threshold  did  not  call  for  human  vengeance. 
It  did  but  witness  before  God  and  men  that  the  day  of  com- 
promise, negotiation,  dallying,  delay,  had  passed,  and  that  the 
day  of  wrath  had  come, — the  day  for  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
been  buying  ships  and  enlisting  men  without  due  form  and 
warrant  of  statute  law. 


248  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEE  XXXI. 

THE     EUROPEAN     QUESTION. 

The  Secretary  of  State — England  and  France — Privateers  and  Piracy — The 
New  Navy — Whaling  Schooners  as  War  Vessels. 

ME.  LINCOLN'S  education  for  the  duties  he  was  now  per- 
forming had  been  given  him  through  long  and  painful  pro- 
cesses by  all  of  which  he  had  faithfully  profited,  but  his  attain- 
ments were  all  in  a  peculiar  manner  limited  by  the  boundaries 
of  his  own  country.  He  spoke  no  other  than  the  English 
tongue.  He  knew  little  of  other  nations  beyond  a  moderate 
acquaintance  with  their  geography  and  history  and  some  stray 
ideas  conveyed  to  him  by  such  representatives  as  they  had  sent 
to  America  as  emigrants.  From  these  latter,  indeed,  he  had 
learned  all  they  had  to  teach,  and  such  acquisitions  were  of 
value  to  him  now ;  but  all  the  emigrants  had  been  men  and 
women  of  "  the  people." 

Of  the  governing  castes  and  classes  of  Europe,  and  of  Euro- 
pean politics,  the  cesspool  in  which  kings  and  their  ministers 
dabbled  and  fished  and  groped  for  the  prizes  of  war  and  diplo- 
macy, he  knew  almost  nothing  and  cared  but  little  more. 

He  could  but  be  aware  that  the  great  maritime  nations  of  the 
Old  World  were  watching  with  jealous  eyes  the  growth  of  the 
new  power  in  the  West  over  which  he  had  been  called  to  rule, 
but  he  had  great  faith  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  the  supposa- 
ble  common-sense  of  European  statesmen.  So  great  was  this 
faith  of  his  that  it  came  perilously  near  to  leading  him  into  an 
error.  It  would  surely  have  done  so  but  for  the  simple  direct- 
ness of  the  doctrine  he  at  once  formulated  for  the  government 
of  the  foreign  policy  of  the  United  States. 


THE  EUROPEAN  QUESTION.  249 

"  This  is  our  own  affair,"  he  said,  in  effect.  "  It  is  a  family 
quarrel  with  which  foreign  nations  have  nothing  to  do,  and 
they  must  let  it  alone." 

The  practical  details  of  the  processes  by  which  that  doctrine 
was  to  be  communicated  to  European  powers  were  left  almost 
altogether  to  the  care  of  Mr.  Seward,  the  Secretary  of  State. 
They  could  not  have  been  intrusted  to  a  brain  more  capable  or  to 
a  heart  more  utterly  worthy  of  the  momentous  trust.  There  was 
little  need  for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  add  the  State  Department  to  hi& 
other  burdens  while  its  management  was  under  such  an  eye  and 
hand  as  those  of  the  practised  New  York  statesman.  Here,  at 
least,  there  was  something  in  the  nature  of  complete  relief, 
and  the  weary  ruler  accepted  it  as  frankly  as  it  was  given. 
The  friendship  between  him  and  his  "  minister  of  foreign  af- 
fairs," from  the  very  first,  assumed  a  warm  and  personal  char- 
acter. The  gossips  who  strove  to  give  it  any  other  significance, 
then  or  afterwards,  did  but  testify  their  incapacity  to  under- 
stand the  broad  patriotism  and  generous  mutual  confidence  of 
these  two  men. 

In  training,  as  in  natural  gifts,  Mr.  Seward  was  as  unlike 
Mr.  Lincoln  as  he  well  could  be ;  but  they  had  one  thing  in 
common  and  one  tie  of  measureless  brotherhood  in  their  unsel- 
fish devotion  to  the  performance  of  the  great  work  which  God 
had  laid  upon  them.  If,  at  first,  they  were  a  little  slow,  Mr. 
Seward  somewhat  the  slower,  in  coming  to  a  mutual  under- 
standing of  each  other's  character,  aim,  and  purpose,  that  was 
all  the  more  surely  attained  in  the  course  of  joint  toil  and 
counsel  and  anxiety.  Together,  each  in  his  appointed  place, 
they  labored  in  harmony  to  the  end. 

It  was  well  known  that  one  of  the  first  acts  of  Mr.  Davis,  on 
assuming  the  reins  of  power,  had  been  to  dispatch  emissaries 
to  the  more  important  courts  of  Europe,  notably  to  those  of 
England  and  France.  Much  preliminary  work,  of  a  prepara- 
tory kind,  had  before  that  time  been  accomplished  by  the  un- 
official agents  of  the  intended  rebellion.  A  strong  feeling  of 


250  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

sympathy  for  the  South,  had  been  most  skillfully  created.  In 
Europe,  as  in  America,  the  "  War"  had  been  in  progress  for 
months  before  Mr.  Lincoln's  inauguration.  Up  to  the  close 
of  the  Buchanan  Administration  the  cause  of  the  South  had 
been  vigorously  served  abroad,  in  not  a  few  instances,  by  the 
official  and  accredited  representatives  of  the  National  Govern- 
ment at  "Washington. 

It  was  difficult,  at  first,  for  foreign  diplomacy  to  find  a  place 
for  the  insertion  of  an  entering  wedge  of  interference.  The 
stern  directness  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  policy  was  shortly  to 
offer  one,  hi  such  a  shape  as  should  present  the  most  tempting 
bait  and  with  it  the  most  trying  problem.  As  early  as  the 
17th  of  April,  1861,  three  days  after  the  surrender  of  Fort 
Sumter,  Mr.  Davis  issued  a  proclamation  offering  "  letters  of 
marque  and  reprisal,"  under  the  seal  of  the  Confederate  States, 
to  armed  privateers  of  all  nations. 

It  was  truly  a  tempting  offer  to  the  supposable  pirates  of 
Europe,  but  it  was  rendered  somewhat  less  so,  in  about  forty- 
eight  hours,  by  the  counter-proclamation  of  President  Lincoln. 
This  document  contained  a  deal  of  salutary  warning  and  had  a 
most  beneficial  effect.  It  notified  the  "  privateers"  invited  by 
Mr.  Davis  that  they  would  be  "  held  amenable  to  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  for  the  prevention  and  punishment  of  piracy." 

This  declaration  was  in  strict  accordance  with  the  more  re- 
cent utterances  of  the  great  commercial  powers  and  with  the 
treaties  they  had  mutually  entered  into.  At  the  same  time  a 
rigid  blockade  was  declared  of  all  the  ports  of  the  States  then 
included  in  the  Confederacy.  Those  of  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  were  added  in  due  time. 

The  most  vigorous  efforts  were  made  to  render  the  blockade 
effective.  Ships  were  fitted  out  and  put  to  sea  even  more 
rapidly  than  regiments  on  land  were  raised  and  equipped. 
The  new  navy  of  the  United  States  was  in  the  active  perform- 
ance of  its  sudden  duties  before  the  first  company  of  skirmish- 
ers marched  across  the  Long  Bridge. 


THE  EUROPEAN  QUESTION.  251 

Of  naval  affairs,  as  such,  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  but  little.  He 
had  never  been  upon  salt  water  nor  examined  a  vessel  of  war. 
He  had,  however,  studied  with  care  and  acquired  an  intimate, 
practical  knowledge  of  the  navigation  of  the  great  rivers  of  the 
West.  These  latter  and  their  flotilla,  present  and  prospective, 
were  judiciously  loosened  somewhat  from  the  control  of  the 
Navy  Department.  They  remained  to  the  end  under  the  es- 
pecial care  of  the  man  who  had  himself  been  a  "  river-pilot," 
who  had  made  and  managed  flatboats,  and  who  had  mastered 
problems  of  fresh-water  navigation  which  would  have  been 
new  and  strange  to  the  most  accomplished  seaman  in  the  At- 
lantic squadron. 

There  was  little  difficulty  in  obtaining  the  services  of  all  de- 
sirable sea-going  vessels,  owing  to  the  panic  created  among  the 
commercial  classes  by  the  Confederate  threat  of  privateering. 
Owners  were  eager  to  place  their  ships  and  steamers  under  the 
national  flag,  whether  by  sale  or  charter.  There  were  notable 
instances  of  patriotic  liberality  in  this  direction,  but  there  were 
more  of  a  kind  hardly  so  creditable  to  human  nature.  These 
latter  may  be  fairly  illustrated  by  the  case  of  a  Connecticut 
merchant  who  urged  Mr.  Lincoln  to  purchase  "  for  war  pur- 
poses" a  batch  of  worn-out  whaling-schooners.  No  longer  fit 
to  deal  with  a  whale,  they  were  just  the  thing  in  which  a  crew 
of  brave  men  under  government  pay  could  pursue,  fight,  cap- 
ture, a  fleet  of  French  or  English  armed  steamers  under  the 
rebel  flag. 

Mr.  Lincoln  preferred  to  look  on  the  ludicrous  side  of  such 
incidents  as  this  and  a  hundred  other  manifestations  of  stupid 
greed  which  daily  came  before  him.  He  was  genuinely  glad 
to  be  able  to  do  so.  He  freely  declared,  to  more  than  one  who 
conversed  with  him,  that  the  most  important  relief  to  his 
heavy  load  of  care  and  anxiety  was  that  which  he  found  in  his 
capacity  for  enjoying  fun  for  its  own  sake.  He  could  still  tell 
a  story  or  laugh  at  a  joke,  and  he  could  still  use  either  as  a 
weapon  or  a  shield.  In  any  form  of  employment  they  per- 


252  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

formed  invaluable  uses.  Those  whose  solemn  shallowness  ena- 
bles them  to  disregard  the  structure  of  the  human  mind  and 
brain,  or  to  confound  the  one  with  the  other,  will  probably  con- 
tinue to  wonder  at  the  trustworthy  anecdotes  of  the  President's 
unaccountable  frivolity  in  those  days  of  overstrain. 

The  beetle  sees  a  giant  laugh  while  he  is  lifting  a  rock,  and 
indignantly  remarks  to  the  glow-worm  at  his  side :  "  The  fel- 
low is  indecent.  You  or  I  would  have  done  it  with  due  sol- 
emnity." 


BULL  RUN.  253 


CHAPTEK  XXXH. 

BULL   RUN. 

Checker-board  Campaign  Plans — On  to  Richmond — The  Two  Armies — 
Dissolved  Militia — Congressional  Legislation  Under  Sudden  Pressure 
— The  President's  Message — Five  Hundred  Thousand  Men. 

THE  growth  and  development  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion  had  been  attained 
through  processes  peculiarly  peaceful.  On  the  first  day  of 
June,  1861,  it  could  have  been  said  of  them  all,  both  North 
and  South  of  the  Potomac  and  Ohio  rivers,  that  no  one  of 
their  characteristics  was  more  distinctly  marked  than  their  ig- 
norance of  war.  The  living  generation  had  no  memory  or 
knowledge  of  its  effects,  and  the  idea  that  it  might  be  or  that 
it  involved  a  distinct  science  had  dawned  upon  but  few  minds 
among  them. 

The  next  most  important  fact,  politically,  was  the  stone- 
blindness  of  the  masses  to  the  fact  of  their  own  ignorance. 

The  South  believed  itself  essentially  martial,  and  a  great 
deal  had  latterly  been  done  to  make  it  so.  It  was  in  vastly 
better  condition  for  warlike  purposes  than  was  the  North,  and 
the  people  of  the  latter  section  were  ignorant  of  this  fact  also. 

All  over  the  free  States  the  newspaper  editors  and  local  ora- 
tors, great  and  small,  dabbled  fiercely  in  patriotic  statesman- 
ship. They  united  in  assuring  the  President  that  they  had 
supplied  him  with  "an  army,"  and  that  he  was  in  duty  bound 
to  crush  the  Rebellion  with  it.  The  prevalent  idea  of  army- 
movements  appears  to  have  been  borrowed  from  the  black  and 
white  squares  of  a  checker-board  and  their  easily  transferable 
"  buttons."  Substitute  the  seceded  territory  for  the  checker- 


254  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

board,  and  the  President's  obvious  business  was  to  win  the 
game  at  once,  while  so  many  eager  people  were  looking  on  and 
were  waiting  impatiently  to  see  him  do  it. 

The  cry  of  "  On  to  Richmond !"  now  began  to  rise,  with  a 
full-throated  volume  which  threatened  to  drown  the  explana- 
tory reply  that  there  were  many  brave  men,  with  rifles  in  their 
hands,  standing  right  in  the  way. 

A  badly  managed  skirmish  at  Big  Bethel,  Virginia,  on  the 
10th  of  June,  costing  several  valuable  lives,  did  but  whet  the 
popular  appetite  for  military  activity.  Little  affairs  of  even 
less  bloodshed,  but  with  more  important  results,  took  place  in 
"West  Virginia.  The  "battle  of  Boonville,"  Missouri,  wa& 
faintly  fought  and  fled  from  by  the  Rebel  militia  on  the  lYth 
of  June,  and  it  was  urged  that  the  Confederate  forces  between 
"Washington  and  Richmond  would  scatter  as  promptly  as  their 
"Western  brethren,  if  advanced  upon  in  a  similar  manner. 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  share  in  this  delusion,  but  both  he  and 
his  military  counselors  were  aware  that  there  were  positions 
of  great  strategic  importance  which  might  well  be  seized  and 
occupied,  with  a  view  to  further  operations.  The  most  im- 
portant of  these,  as  was  afterwards  proved,  was  the  one  upon 
which  the  first  movement  was  planned  by  the  generals  on  both 
sides. 

Manassas  Junction  was  the  point  where  the  railroad  from 
Alexandria,  on  the  Potomac,  met  the  railway  connecting  the 
rest  of  Virginia  with  the  Shenandoah  Valley.  It  had  been 
feebly  occupied  by  the  State  militia  of  Virginia,  even  before 
the  secession  of  that  commonwealth,  and  it  was  made  a  rallying- 
point  for  subsequent  levies.  About  the  first  of  June,  1861, 
General  Beauregard,  of  the  Confederate  army,  was  sent  to  take 
command  of  the  forces  assembled  for  the  protection  of  the 
Manassas  lines.  These  were,  therefore,  the  first  obstruction  in 
the  way  of  any  direct  movement  "  on  to  Richmond." 

The  Union  troops  were  mainly  composed  of  State  militia, 
and  these  were  all  "  three-months  men."  They  included  all  the 


BULL  RUN.  255 

well-drilled  and  disciplined  regiments,  for  the  "  regulars"  were 
few  indeed,  and  the  volunteers  were  yet  hardly  fit  for  use  as 
soldiers.  The  State-militia  term  of  service  was  a  most  impor- 
tant factor  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  military  calculations.  It  was  so 
much  so,  that  their  melting  away  by  reason  of  its  expiration 
began  before  a  blow  could  be  struck.  On  the  very  eve  of  the 
battle  of  Bull  Run,  the  Fourth  Pennsylvania  Eegiment  and 
Yarian's  Battery  of  (New  York)  Light  Artillery  were  dis- 
missed and  marched  away  from  the  field  of  battle  because  their 
time  had  run  out.  Others,  similarly  circumstanced,  remained, 
and  took  their  share  of  the  work  in  hand. 

The  forward  movement  called  for  by  the  country,  and  per- 
haps by  military  as  well  as  political  necessity,  was  ordered,  and 
was  made  under  General  McDowell.  With  a  dissolving  army 
of  less  than  twenty-eight  thousand  men  and  forty-nine  guns, 
he  fought  an  army  of  the  best  soldiers  in  the  Confederacy, 
thirty-two  thousand  strong,  with  fifty-seven  guns.  Actual 
fighting  began  on  the  18th  of  July,  and  it  continued,  with 
varied  fluctuations,  but  with  general  good  conduct  of  both 
officers  and  men  on  both  sides,  until  the  so-called  "  panic"  of 
the  Union  troops.  This  took  place  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
21st.  By  that  time  a  large  part  of  the  Rebel  forces  had  been 
so  severely  handled  that  they  were  under  a  strong  impression 
that  they  had  been  defeated.  They  were  only  a  little  less  dis- 
organized for  military  purposes  than  were  their  tired-out  and 
routed  antagonists.  It  afterwards  required  some  investigation 
to  assure  the  Confederate  commanders  of  their  victory.  Even 
when  satisfied  of  the  fact,  they  were  in  no  condition  to 
follow  it  up.  The  losses  on  both  sides,  officially  reported, 
were :  United  States — 25  guns,  481  men  killed,  1011  wounded, 
1460  prisoners  sent  to  Richmond,  including  many  wounded ; 
Confederates — 387  men  killed,  1582  wounded,  and  a  few  pri- 
soners. 

It  was  a  hard-fought  action,  and  the  "  panic"  was  simply  the 
disintegration  of  a  number  of  regiments  of  raw  troops,  worn 


256  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

out  with  fatigue  from  marching,  fighting,  hunger,  thirst,  ex- 
tremely hot  weather,  and  intense  excitement.  There  was  quite 
enough  of  the  Union  army  left  in  good  form,  when  all  was 
over,  to  have  checked  any  forward  movement  on  the  part  of 
what  was  also  left  in  good  order  of  the  forces  it  had  been 
fighting  with.  The  Confederate  commanders  were  men  of 
sense  and  were  contented  with  reaping  the  harvest  left  in  their 
possession  in  such  a  manner. 

They  did  well ;  but  the  entire  South  went  crazy  with  exulta- 
tion, after  a  fashion  which,  as  its  rulers  afterwards  openly 
stated,  sadly  interfered  with  all  current  plans  and  operations. 

Southern  contempt  for  all  men  and  things  north  of  "  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line"  received  a  sudden  and  enormous  inflation,  and 
the  impression  went  abroad  that  "  the  Yankees"  would  never 
presume  to  face  "  the  Chivalry"  again. 

Washington  city,  for  a  number  of  days,  was  thronged  with 
a  mob  of  fugitive  members  of  the  shattered  regiments.  Every 
man  of  them  had  a  fearful  tale  to  tell  and  was  anxious  to  get 
something  to  eat.  To  all  appearance  the  cause  of  the  Union 
had  received  a  severe  blow.  There  had  been  an  undeniable 
defeat  and  what  to  some  critics  looked  like  a  throwing  away 
of  men  and  guns  and  military  prestige.  The  disaster  was  in 
appearance  mainly,  however,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  so  understood  it. 

The  army  beaten  at  Bull  Eun  was,  for  its  greater  part,  an 
improvised  force,  on  the  eve  of  disbandment.  If  it  had  there 
won  never  so  complete  a  victory,  it  could  hardly  have  been  held 
together  long  enough  to  reap  any  other  fruit  thereof  than  the 
occupation  of  important  positions.  The  majority  of  its  per- 
sonal membership,  stung  by  the  memory  of  their  disaster  and 
as  brave  as  ever,  were  only  the  more  eager  to  rush  into  the 
permanent  organizations  of  "  three-years  men."  No  victory 
could  have  done  half  so  much  towards  suddenly  converting 
them  into  steady  and  trusty  veterans.  The  gain  right  here  all 
but  counterbalanced  the  seeming  loss.  At  the  North,  through 
every  State,  county,  town,  village,  homestead,  the  effect  was 


BULL  RUN.  257 

instantaneous  and  most  salutary.  The  editors  were  given 
something  new  to  write  about  for  a  while,  and  the  men  of  ac- 
tion poured  in  steadier,  more  angrily  determined  streams  to- 
wards the  Federal  recruiting  offices.  The  whole  people  were 
taught,  as  it  were  in  one  day,  much  of  the  real  nature  of  the 
gage  of  battle  they  had  accepted,  and  they  did  not  flinch  for  a 
moment  from  the  grisly  truth  so  presented  to  them. 

To  Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  as  a  ruler,  the  fate  of  the  militia 
army  brought  a  tremendous  justification  of  the  steps  he  had 
taken  for  the  increase  of  the  regular  army  and  navy  and  for 
the  almost  unlimited  enlistment  of  volunteers.  Congress  had 
assembled  on  the  4th  of  July,  in  a  most  liberal  and  patriotic 
state  of  mind,  with  the  exception  of  a  mere  squad  of  timid 
temporizers  and  another  of  open  sympathizers  with  Seces- 
sion. Nevertheless  there  had  been  much  criticism  of  the 
Administration  in  both  branches  of  the  legislative  body,  with 
some  loud-toned  "  On  to  Richmond  "  oratory,  and  also  a  gen- 
eral industry  in  obtaining  the  appointment  of  constituents  to 
office  which  had  interfered  sadly  with  the  performance  of 
strictly  legislative  functions.  Yery  few  men,  in  either  House 
or  Senate,  had  yet  discovered  the  fact  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was, 
and  for  some  busy  months  had  been,  the  Dictator  of  a  Republic 
struggling  for  its  very  life.  It  did  not  fully  dawn  upon  them 
until  the  day  when  they  suddenly  awoke  to  the  conviction  that 
they  themselves  eagerly  desired  him  to  be  so  and  were  ready 
to  put  into  his  hands  all  the  dictatorial  powers  they  knew  how 
to  give  him,  and  then  hasten  home. 

The  message  the  President  sent  to  Congress  upon  its  assem- 
bling was  a  remarkable  document.  It  began  with  a  condensed 
historical  sketch  of  the  rise  of  the  Rebellion  and  of  its  progress 
to  that  date.  It  carefully  summed  up  and  presented  the  great 
fact,  so  carefully  left  unshaken  by  his  own  course  from  the 
beginning,  that  the  Rebels  and  not  the  National  Government 
had  forced  upon  the  country  the  one  distinct  issue,  "  immediate 
dissolution  or  blood."  It  showed  that  they  had  followed  this 


258  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

forcing  by  practical  dissolution,  so  far  as  that  was  in  their 
power,  and  by  drawing  the  first  blood  themselves. 

This  issue,  so  presented,  the  message  then  contended,  was 
not  all  which  was  at  stake  in  the  conflict  thus  ruthlessly  pre- 
cipitated. It  said :  "  And  this  issue  embraces  more  than  the 
fate  of  these  United  States.  It  presents  to  the  whole  family 
of  man  the  question  whether  a  constitutional  republic  or 
democracy, — a  government  of  the  people  by  the  same  people, 
— can  or  cannot  maintain  its  territorial  integrity  against  its 
own  domestic  foes.  It  presents  the  question  whether  discon- 
tented individuals,  too  few  in  number  to  control  administra- 
tion according  to  organic  law  in  any  case,  can  always,  upon 
the  pretenses  made  in  this  case,  or  on  any  other  pretenses,  or 
arbitrarily  without  any  pretense,  break  up  their  government, 
and  thus  put  an  end  to  free  government  upon  the  earth.  It 
forces  us  to  ask,  '  Is  there  in  all  republics  this  inherent  and 
fatal  weakness  ? '  '  Must  a  government,  of  necessity,  be  too 
strong  for  the  liberties  of  its  own  people  or  too  weak  to  main- 
tain its  own  existence  ? ' ' 

These  questions  presented  the  precise  view  of  the  case  held 
by  European  statesmen,  and  they  had  often  and  openly  de- 
clared their  belief  that,  whenever  such  a  question  should  be 
;asked  by  the  logic  of  actual  events,  the  answer  would  be  given 
in  the  affirmative  and  the  republic  or  democracy  involved 
would  at  once  go  to  pieces.  As  to  the  American  Republic, 
the  issue  was  now  plainly  set  before  the  whole  world  by  the 
man  who  was  more  serenely  confident  than  almost  any  other 
that  such  answer  would  be  given  as  should  assure  all  future 
thinkers  of  the  stability  of  all  free  governments,  provided  these 
were  bravely  maintained  by  the  men  in  charge  of  them. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  message  dealt  briefly  but  sharply  with  certain 
absurd  ideas  of  possible  "  neutrality"  which  were  employed  at 
the  time  in  Kentucky  as  a  convenient  cloak  for  cowardice  and 
treason.  He  defended  his  course  in  the  arbitrary  suspension 
of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus.  He  then  advised  that  Congress, 


BULL  BUN.  259 

in  the  hope  of  making  the  war  a  short  one,  should  place  at  the 
disposal  of  the  government  four  hundred  thousand  men  and 
four  hundred  millions  of  dollars. 

These  were  large  figures,  and  they  almost  took  away  the 
breath  of  some  who  heard  them  ;  but  the  members  of  the  body 
to  whom  the  message  was  addressed  had  been  doing  the  requi- 
site amount  of  thinking,  during  the  eighty  days  which  had 
passed  since  the  President's  proclamation  summoned  them  to- 
gether. They  did  what  they  would  surely  not  have  done  if 
they  had  been  gathered  too  hastily.  They  voted  half  a  mil- 
lion of  men  and  five  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  in  a  burst  of 
eager  patriotism. 

Even  Mr.  Lincoln  had  almost  a  hope,  at  first,  that  this  might 
prove  sufficient.  It  might  well  have  been  so  if  the  half  mil- 
lion of  men  had  at  that  hour  been  soldiers,  and  if  these  had 
been  under  officers,  great  and  small,  such  as  the  course  of  the 
war,  with  Mr.  Lincoln's  watchful  help,  afterwards  selected 
from  among  the  long  list  of  then  untried,  unknown,  altogether 
undiscovered  and  undeveloped  heroes. 

The  message  concluded  with  an  exhaustive  analysis  of  the 
stupidities  and  absurdities  of  the  old  doctrine  of  "  State  rights" 
as  now  applied  to  the  war  purposes  of  the  Rebellion.  Such  an 
argument  was  timely,  both  for  home  and  foreign  reading.  It 
was  intended  for  both,  as  was  also  much  of  the  earlier  matter 
of  the  message. 

Congress  passed  the  necessary  acts  to  legalize  whatever  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  seen  fit  to  do.  Its  leadership  was  in  the  hands  of 
strong,  hard-headed,  resolute  men,  fresh  from  hearing  the 
voices  of  their  angry  constituents,  male  and  female,  and  not  a 
little  very  martial  music  of  other  descriptions.  The  protests 
of  the  disloyal  members  were  loud  and  bitter,  but  small  atten- 
tion was  paid  them.  The  minority  vote  against  the  measures 
sustaining  the  government  contained  the  names  of  several  men 
who  afterwards  accepted  commissions  in  the  Eebel  army,  and 
of  one,  Yallandigham  of  Ohio,  who  was  afterwards  contemptu- 


260  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ously  sent  across  the  lines  into  the  Confederacy,  "  because  he 
belonged  there." 

Into  such  a  body  as  this  Congress,  busily  engaged  in  so  good 
a  work  and  in  the  discussion  of  its  details,  the  news  of  the  de- 
feat at  Bull  Eun  fell  like  a  bursting  bombshell.  It  was  an  ex- 
plosion which  put  an  end  to  useless  debate  and  blew  to  atoms 
the  last  vestige  of  hesitation  as  to  the  necessities  of  the  case. 
All  remaining  business  was  finished  in  exactly  two  weeks,  fur- 
nishing perhaps  the  most  remarkable  instance  on  record  of 
legislation  condensed  under  pressure.  Congress  adjourned  and 
went  home,  leaving  Mr.  Lincoln  at  "Washington  as  sole  dic- 
tator, endowed  for  the  first  time  with  full  forms  of  law  for  the 
carrying  on  of  the  war. 


THE  BLOCKADE.  261 


CHAPTEK  XXXIH. 

THE   BLOCKADE. 

Kecognition — Accepting  the  Situation — The  Neutrality  Mask — Rejected 
Information— War  Correspondence  not  History— The  Fetters  of  Eti- 
quette not  Worn. 

ME.  LINCOLN  carefully  abstained  from  coming  into  open  col- 
lision with  any  State  government  acting  as  such.  In  public 
and  in  private  he  recognized  the  assailants  of  the  national  in- 
tegrity only  as  criminal  individuals.  He  treated  the  Con- 
federacy simply  as  the  same  men  acting  together  in  an  organ- 
ized body  for  the  same  essentially  criminal  purposes.  He  in- 
sisted that,  as  no  power  existed  anywhere  for  the  dissolution 
of  the  Union  without  the  assent  of  all  concerned  or  a  majority 
of  them,  it  had  not  been  dissolved.  A  different  view  was  con- 
veniently taken  for  political  purposes  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  England  and  France  did  not  even  wait  for  the  com- 
plete formation  of  the  Confederacy  before  they  made  haste  to 
recognize  it  as  a  "  belligerent"  and  to  treat  it  as  in  some  sort 
one  of  the  nations  of  the  earth.  "  The  South,"  as  they  com- 
monly called  it,  had  yet  no  navy,  but  its  admirers  hoped  and 
believed  that  the  deficiency  would  soon  be  supplied. 

The  North,  they  were  yet  more  sure,  was  unable  to  send  to 
sea  a  fleet  capable  of  coping  with  any  one  of  their  cruising 
squadrons.  It  had  neither  ships  nor  money  nor  credit,  and  it 
was  so  far  disorganized  that  it  was  not  likely  to  obtain  either 
at  an  early  day.  It  was  to  their  minds  merely  a  question  of 
time,  indeed,  into  how  many  fragments,  of  what  shapes,  the 
offensive  republic  should  fall. 

The  motion  towards  recognition  was  met  by  a  prompt  and 


262  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

vigorous  protest.  The  attitude  and  purpose  of  the  United 
States,  expressed  through  the  courageous  and  skillful  diplomacy 
of  Mr.  Seward,  induced  the  most  precious  hesitation  abroad  as 
to  what  precise  step  in  favor  of  the  South  had  better  next  be 
taken. 

One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  first  and  most  difficult  duties,  after 
declaring  a  blockade  of  Southern  ports,  had  been  to  deprive 
foreign  nations  of  all  pretext  for  denying  its  practical  efficiency. 
A  mere  "paper  blockade"  would  have  invited  certain  ruin, 
and  so  one  was  enforced  which  was  quickly  found  to  stand  the 
most  expensive  tests.  The  work  of  shutting  up  the  blockaded 
ports  was  performed  by  a  navy  of  hastily  gathered  and  some- 
what miscellaneous  material,  but  one  that  proved  amply  effi- 
cient. 

Finding  that  the  Union  cruisers  were  vigilant  and  numer- 
ous, and  that  the  blockade  could  neither  be  avoided  nor  denied, 
the  powers  most  directly  interested  were  compelled  to  meet 
the  question  whether  they  should  forcibly  break  through  or 
surrender  all  hope  of  getting  regular  supplies  of  Southern  cot- 
ton till  the  end  of  the  war. 

They  at  first  very  nearly  reached  the  conclusion  to  break  the 
blockade  by  force,  deliberately  calculating  that  the  United 
States,  already  struggling  under  terrible  difficulties,  would  at 
once  be  cowed  by  the  prospect  of  a  war  with  England  and 
France  and  the  open  addition  of  their  powers  to  those  of  the 
Confederacy.  They  were  not  at  all  acquainted  with  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, and  but  slightly  so  with  the  great  people  who  sustained 
him.  Both  had  been  sadly  misrepresented  to  them  by  inter- 
ested parties. 

Nothing  could  well  be  plainer  to  the  mind  of  the  President 
than  that  the  United  States  had  little  to  lose  and  everything  to 
gain  by  braving  the  worst  at  once.  Cowardice  was  the  road  to 
sure  and  swift  destruction.  The  only  hope  was  in  utterly  un- 
flinching courage.  Our  commerce  was  already  fast  disappear- 
ing from  the  seas,  and  there  was  every  reason  to  believe  that 


THE  BLOCKADE.  263 

in  any  event  it  would  shortly  vanish  altogether.  It  did  so 
vanish,  strictly  in  accordance  with  this  expectation.  In  more 
than  twenty  years  following  the  issue  of  Mr.  Davis's  privateer- 
ing proclamation  it  has  not  recovered  the  ground  it  that  day 
began  to  lose.  So  perceiving  and  so  expecting,  Mr.  Lincoln 
declared  in  good  set  terms  that  if  France  and  England  should 
so  determine  on  their  own  behalf,  their  commerce  also  should 
follow  into  disaster  that  which  we  were  inevitably  losing. 
They  were  to  estimate  for  themselves  the  relative  values  of 
their  general  commerce,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  prospective 
cotton-crops  and  friendship  of  the  Confederacy,  on  the  other. 

For  several  months  the  two  powers  looked  the  problem  in 
the  face  without  coming  to  any  definite  conclusion.  The  form 
in  which  it  was  laid  before  them  from  time  to  time  can  best 
be  understood  by  quotations  from  the  written  instructions 
given  by  Mr.  Seward  to  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams  on  the 
latter's  departure  to  his  duties  as  Minister  to  England. 

"  If,  as  the  President  does  not  at  all  apprehend,  you  shall 
find  Her  Majesty's  government  tolerating  the  application  of 
the  so-called  seceding  States  or  wavering  about  it,  you  will  not 
leave  them  to  suppose  for  a  moment  that  they  can  grant  that 
application  and  remain  the  friends  of  the  United  States.  You 
may  even  assure  them  promptly,  in  that  case,  that  if  they  de- 
termine to  recognize,  they  may  at  the-  same  time  prepare  to 
enter  into  an  alliance  with  the  enemies  of  this  republic." 

There  was  more  to  the  same  effect ;  and  a  similar  message 
was  carried  to  France.  It  was  by  no  means  kindly  received 
by  either  power,  but  its  expression  of  unflinching  determina- 
tion prevented  the  threatened  disaster. 

Through  the  following  three  months  the  two  governments 
beyond  seas  continued  to  wrestle  with  the  difficulty  before 
them. 

There,  along  the  whole  Confederate  seaboard,  was  still  the 
effective  blockade,  and  behind  it  lay  stores  of  cotton  with  end- 
less crops  yet  to  come,  and  with  a  young  nation  ready  to  raise 


264  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

them  and  sell  them  and  at  the  same  time  forever  to  divide 
and  cripple  the  growing  and  dangerous  power  of  the  United 
States.  Here,  all  the  while  before  their  eyes,  was  the  stern 
alternative  presented  by  Mr.  Seward. 

They  decided  that  they  would  not  exactly  "recognize"  and 
so  at  once  bring  on  hostilities.  The  government  of  Great 
Britain  first  discovered  a  sort  of  solution.  It  sought  to  dodge, 
beg,  and  circumvent  the  entire  difficulty  by  solemnly  declaring 
itself  "neutral"  between  two  morally  equal  and  belligerent 
parties,  into  which  it  assumed  the  American  Republic  to  be 
divided. 

There  was  something  painfully  ludicrous  about  such  a  posi- 
tion, but  for  the  tremendous  consequences  immediately  threat- 
ened by  it  and  the  miseries  and  wastes  which  were  actually  re- 
sultant. The  manner  in  which  it  was  received  at  Washington 
reads  now  singularly  like  a  bit  of  dry,  grim  humor,  officially 
perpetrated  by  Mr.  Seward  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  suggestion. 

On  the  15th  of  June  the  representatives  of  England  and 
France  at  "Washington  asked  Mr.  Seward  for  the  privilege  of 
reading  to  him  officially  certain  fresh  instructions  sent  to  them 
by  their  respective  governments.  Mr.  Seward  politely  de- 
clined to  listen  until  he  should  first  "  unofficially"  have  read 
the  proffered  papers  by  himself  that  he  might  know  what  they 
were.  He  was  permitted  to  examine  the  suspicious  instruc- 
tions, therefore,  privately.  Having  done  so,  and  having  con- 
sulted Mr.  Lincoln,  he  refused  to  know  or  to  be  "  officially" 
informed  what  there  was  in  them.  He  was  two  men  for  that 
occasion,  and  Mr.  Seward  was  too  wise  to  let  the  Secretary  of 
State  take  official  notice  of  documents  which  formally  set  forth 
the  entire  doctrine  of  "  neutrality."  Fresh  instructions,  how- 
ever, were  at  once  forwarded  to  Mr.  Adams  and  our  other  rep- 
resentatives abroad. 

As  a  result  of  this  mingling  of  prudence  and  firmness,  Rebel 
sympathy  in  Europe  was  left  with  no  other  way  of  expressing 
itself  but  to  arm  and  send  out  the  Alabama,  and  like  piratical 


THE  BLOCKADE.  265 

craft,  and  to  build  swift  steamers  in  which  to  "  run  the  block- 
ade" of  the  Southern  Atlantic  seaports.  The  general  disposi- 
tion to  do  these  things  received  a  tremendous  impulse  from  the 
battle  of  Bull  Eun. 

The  true  character  of  this  engagement  was  wildly  travestied 
for  foreign  consumption  by  an  English  "  war-correspondent" 
by  the  name  of  Russell,  who  saw  none  of  the  hard  fighting 
and  a  good  deal  of  the  disorganized  militia  whose  mob  of  fugi- 
tives interfered  with  his  own  panic-stricken  race  from  the  sup- 
posed approach  of  danger.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  to  this 
day  the  accounts  written  by  such  men  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment,  in  great  excitement,  without  any  possible  means  of 
obtaining  correct  information,  are  accepted  widely  as  "his- 
tory," while  the  contrary  statements  of  commanding  generals 
and  other  competent  authorities,  on  T>oih  sides,  are  unread  or 
disbelieved. 

Conferences  between  Mr.  Seward  and  Mr.  Lincoln  were 
almost  of  daily  occurrence,  and  the  iron  hand  discernible  in 
the  conduct  of  our  foreign  affairs  was  not  solely  that  of  the 
shrewd  and  able  head  of  the  State  Department.  These  con- 
ferences were  generally  held  at  the  White  House,  to  and  from 
which  Mr.  Seward  went  and  came  with  the  easy  familiarity  of 
a  household  intimate  rather  than  with  any  observance  of  use- 
less etiquette.  It  was  not  at  all  uncommon,  however,  for  Mr. 
Lincoln  to  walk  over  to  the  State  Department,  in  the  daytime, 
or  to  Mr.  Seward's  house,  in  the  evening,  with  or  without  an 
attending  private  secretary  to  carry  papers.  On  the  whole, 
he  generally  preferred  to  go  alone,  as  he  would  have  done 
formerly  in  the  transaction  of  private  business  at  Springfield. 
It  was  the  business  itself,  and  that  only,  with  which  he  bur- 
dened his  mind.  It  is  to  be  doubted  if  either  he  or  Mr.  Sew- 
ard ever  wasted  a  thought  upon  their  purely  personal  methods 
of  doing  their  work. 

Then  and  afterwards  a  similar  freedom  marked  the  inter- 
course of  the  President  with  the  other  members  of  his  Cabinet, 


266  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  yet  a  close  observer  would  not  have  failed  to  perceive  such 
differences,  finely  but  unconsciously  graded  and  marked,  as 
each  man's  personal  character  and  uses  indicated  or  de- 
manded. 


WORE  WITH  RAW  MATERIALS.  267 


CHAPTEK  XXXIY. 

» 

WORK  WITH  EAW  MATERIALS. 

The  New  Army — Hunting  for  Brigadiers — Finances — Preparations  of  the 
South — Old  Guns  and  New — Presidential  Target-Practice — Selection 
of  General  McClellan. 

WHEN  Congress  adjourned  on  the  6th  of  August,  1861, 
there  was  a  strong  feeling  in  the  minds  of  its  membership,  and 
throughout  the  country  among  all  men,  that  to  "  the  Govern- 
ment," meaning  by  that  word,  very  distinctly,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, the  President,  had  been  given  all  that  it  or  he  could  ask 
for,  and  that  the  war  ought,  in  all  reason,  to  be  made  a  short 
one. 

A  great  deal  had  been  given,  truly.  Every  day  that  passed 
saw  some  fresh  regiment  of  enthusiastic  volunteers  marching, 
with  more  or  less  of  regularity  in  their  lines,  through  the 
streets  of  "Washington,  or  into  one  of  the  several  designated 
camps  of  the  West  and  Center.  Five  hundred  thousand  men 
had  been  voted,  and  five  hundred  millions  of  money.  That 
was  a  great  deal.  Men  enough  to  overrun  the  whole  Confed- 
eracy, and  money  enough  to  pay  their  expenses.  Great  things 
were  expected  of  the  President,  but  no  other  man  living  knew 
so  well  as  he  did  the  marvelous  differences  between  the  good 
"  voting"  done  by  the  national  legislature  and  the  long  results 
of  it  which  had  been  left  for  him  to  realize. 

Up  to  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  Act  by  which  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  authorized  to  accept  the  services  of  volunteers,  about 
three  hundred  thousand  men  had  offered  themselves  and  had 
been,  for  the  greater  part,  promptly  accepted.  They  had  also 
been  put  into  training,  as  efficiently  as  might  be,  in  such  a 


268  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

famine  of  military  teachers,  for  the  purpose  of  turning  them 
into  soldiers.  Quite  a  large  force  was  already  in  actual  service, 
but  the  new  law  was  nevertheless  a  good  thing  to  have  and 
work  under,  and  the  business  of  recruiting  new  regiments  went 
forward  with  great  energy. 

The  organization  of  such  an  army  presented  difficult  prob- 
lems in  abundance ;  but  these  were  met  and  seized  and  solved 
with  a  sagacity  and  patience  which  appears  more  wonderful  as 
the  years  go  by.  The  very  organic  structure  of  the  country, 
politically,  created  peculiar  features  of  the  situation,  and  these 
were  not  altogether  detrimental.  The  appointments  to  offices 
of  every  grade  in  the  regular  army,  in  all  its  branches,  were  in 
the  sole  control  of  the  President.  It  was  not  so  with  the  vol- 
unteers, for  these,  in  a  curiously  complex  way,  were  still  re- 
garded as  "State  troops,"  although  in  the  national  service. 
Their  regiments  were  named  and  numbered  as  of  the  several 
States  wherein  they  were  recruited,  and  all  their  regimental 
officers  were  chosen  and  commissioned  under  the  laws  of  the 
same  States.  Mr.  Lincoln  could  not  appoint  so  much  as  a 
second-lieutenant  in  a  regiment  of  volunteer  infantry.  There 
is  one  instance  recorded  of  a  cavalry  regiment  from  New  York 
reduced  to  one  half  its  original  strength  and  having  lost  all 
its  commissioned  officers  in  one  way  and  another,  until  it  was 
in  command  of  the  orderly  sergeant  of  one  of  its  companies. 
It  was  necessary  to  apply  to  the  Governor  of  New  York  for  a 
commission  for  that  sergeant  as  a  second-lieutenant,  and  he 
passed  the  succeeding  grades  to  that  of  major  in  a  few  weeks 
from  the  date  of  his  first  promotion.  With  the  grade  of  "  col- 
onel "  the  State  appointing  power  terminated  and  that  of  the 
Commander-in-Chief  began.  With  it  also  began  the  all  but  in- 
surmountable difficulties  in  the  way  of  making  even  reasonably 
good  selections  of  "  general  officers."  Much  could  be  done  by 
the  employment  of  graduates  of  the  West  Point  military  school, 
reappearing  now  from  their  long  retirements  in  civil  occupa- 
tions. The  regular  army  itself  furnished  much  good  material, 


WORK  WITH  RAW  MATERIALS.  269 

of  which  such  liberal  use  was  made  as  to  interfere  seriously  with 
the  efficiency  of  that  important  arm  of  the  service.  The  re- 
cords of  the  Mexican  "War  were  searched  to  find  the  names 
of  men  who  had  shown  themselves  capable  of  good  service. 
The  result  may  be  somewhat  illustrated  by  the  career  of  a 
well-known  officer,  a  graduate  of  West  Point  and  of  the 
Mexican  "War,  who  marched  down  Broadway  as  a  volunteer 
private  in  a  New  York  regiment,  and  in  a  marvelously  short 
time,  with  small  help  of  his  own,  save  merit,  found  himself  a 
major-general,  in  command  of  a  division  in  the  West. 

It  was  a  matter  of  course  that  the  pressure  for  "  general " 
appointments  should  be  tremendous.  Politicians  of  all  parties 
were  anxious  for  the  glory  of  stars  upon  their  shoulders,  with 
little  reference  to  their  personal  qualifications  for  the  command 
of  men  on  a  field  of  battle.  Such  men  actually  gathered  and 
carried  or  forwarded  to  Mr.  Lincoln  written  "  recommenda- 
tions" for  their  appointment  as  brigadiers,  in  precisely  the 
same  manner  and  of  the  same  kind  as  if  they  had  been  apply- 
ing for  clerkships  in  the  Treasury. 

Until  the  chaos  could  be  reduced  to  something  approaching 
order,  all  these  papers  were  kept  by  Mr.  Lincoln  in  his  own 
office;  but  they  were  afterwards  transferred  to  their  proper 
pigeon-holes  in  the  War  Department. 

The  most  serious  consideration  in  the  appointment  or  em- 
ployment of  generals  arose  from  the  fact  that  there  was  yet 
almost  no  possibility  of  knowing  who  would  and  who  would 
not  prove  able  to  perform  well  the  work  so  given.  Much  was 
necessarily  left  to  the  appointing  power  of  events  and  to  the 
sure  selections  of  actual  service ;  but  the  untried  capacities  of 
all  commanding  officers  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  a  most  anxious 
reason  for  hesitation  in  risking  important  military  operations 
at  too  early  a  day.  There  were  other  reasons  for  the  delays 
which  so  severely  exercised  the  pens  of  the  newspaper  critics 
of  the  Administration. 

The  details  of  the  processes  to  be  employed  in  converting 


270  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  Congressional  grant  of  "  power  to  raise  money"  into  some 
specific  shape  available  for  the  payment  of  salaries  and  the 
purchase  of  war  materials  were  in  the  capable  hands  of  Mr. 
Salmon  P.  Chase,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  The  methods 
proposed  by  him  were  such  as,  on  the  whole,  secured  the  warm 
approval  and  hearty  co-operation  of  the  President.  The  lead- 
ing financiers  of  the  great  Northern  cities  were  very  prompt 
in  reaching  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  situation.  At  an 
early  meeting  of  the  New  York  bankers  certain  timid  sugges- 
tions as  to  the  future  value  of  government  bonds  were  met  by 
an  energetic  capitalist  with  the  caustic  warning :  "  If  you  let 
the  government  go  down,  your  other  securities  won't  be  worth 
much  to  speak  of.  We  must  let  the  President  have  the  last 
cent."  The  Treasury  and  its  payments  became,  in  a  short  time, 
very  much  an  affair  of  skillful  engraving  and  rapid  printing. 
A  similar  process  was  at  the  same  time  carried  forward,  as 
rapidly  but  not  so  skillfully,  at  the  South.  * 

The  Confederate  Congress  had  voted  its  President  also  a 
nearly  unlimited  army,  and  he  was  fast  assembling  it.  He  had 
a  very  good  start  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  to  time  at  least,  in  all  pre- 
paration and  equipment.  Some  advantages  had  also  been  pro- 
vided for  him  by  Mr.  Floyd,  President  Buchanan's  Secretary 
of  War,  in  transferring  quantities  of  arms  from  United  States 
arsenals  at  the  North  to  similar  places  of  deposit  within  what 
were  now  the  Confederate  army  lines.  Purchases  of  war  ma- 
terials at  the  North  and  in  Europe  had  been  pushed  with  in- 
dustry and  success  until  the  Southern  ports  were  closed  by  the 
blockade  and  armed  forces  were  stationed  at  all  the  points 
where  highways  and  railroads  crossed  the  boundaries  of  seceded 
territory.  In  every  Southern  State  the  work  of  organizing 
and  drilling  soldiers  had  been  pushed  with  feverish  energy  for 
months  before  Mr.  Lincoln  was  inaugurated.  He  knew  very 
well  how  great  a  disadvantage  his  raw  levies  would  be  under 
in  any  collision  with  better  disciplined  troops. 

The  obtaining  of  men  and  officers,  the  turning  of  these  into 


WORK  WITH  RAW  MATERIALS.  271 

soldiers  and  leaders,  constituted  one  vast  tribulation:  but  it 
was  only  a  part  of  the  problem  that  embarrassed  Mr.  Lincoln. 
The  entire  country  did  not  contain  enough  of  serviceable  mus- 
kets, all  patterns  counted,  to  put  one  in  the  hands  of  each  man 
already  enlisted.  There  were  not  sabers  or  carbines  or  pistols 
for  the  cavalry ;  nor  guns  or  caissons  or  ammunition  or  suita- 
ble harness  for  the  artillery ;  neither  were  there  wagons  for 
the  quartermaster's  service  and  commissariat,  or  horses  yet  col- 
lected to  haul  them  or  to  mount  the  cavalry.  Tents  were 
scarce.  Clothing  was  so  difficult  to  obtain  that  even  when  the 
following  winter  came  the  system  for  its  full  supply  had  not 
yet  been  perfected.  The  entire  machinery  and  multiform  ap- 
pliances of  a  brand-new  military  establishment  in  camp  and 
field  had  to  be  developed  from  raw  materials,  and  to  this  task 
Mr.  Lincoln  gave  his  very  life. 

There  was  in  the  upper  circles  of  the  ordnance  service  of 
the  regular  army  an  all  but  invincible  conservatism.  It  took 
the  form,  especially,  of  a  strange  prejudice  against  the  adoption 
of  any  new  invention  in  the  way  of  arms  and  equipments. 
At  the  same  time  there  was  a  sweeping  epidemic  of  invention 
among  all  the  ingenious  patriots  of  the  nation.  Many,  indeed, 
who  were  not  at  all  ingenious,  but  desired  to  make  a  little 
money,  caught  it  also. 

Between  these  two  opposing  forces  Mr.  Lincoln  was  com- 
pelled to  establish  some  kind  of  equilibrium.  The  manufac- 
ture of  improved  arms  went  forward  with  good  rapidity  and 
with  a  constant  effort  towards  the  attainment  of  uniformity. 
Government  agents  in  Europe  made  purchases  of  such  mate- 
rials as  they  could  find.  They  found  a  great  deal  that  they  did 
not  purchase,  indeed ;  and  every  batch  of  murderous  antiquities 
rejected  by  an  United  States  inspecting  officer  was  sure  to  be 
at  once  shipped  to  America  on  speculative  account,  to  be 
urged  upon  the  "War  Department.  There  was  much  "  political 
influence"  brought  to  bear  on  behalf  of  those  curious  collections 
of  condemned  weapons.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  more  than  once 


272  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

compelled  to  laugh,  indignantly,  over  the  effrontery  of  men 
who  brought  to  his  own  office  actual  specimens  of  so-called 
"  rifles,"  to  be  offered  him  by  the  thousand  at  high  prices,  the 
specimen  itself,  in  more  cases  than  one,  being  an  unfirable 
tool  which  would  have  disgraced  a  curiosity-shop. 

Other  matters,  even  more  curious,  were  constantly  urged 
upon  him:  wonderful  new  forms  of  cannon;  coffee-mill 
guns  ;  breastplates  and  cuirasses,  of  steel  or  of  complex  "  pad- 
ding," which  would  have  been  fine  loads  for  men  on  a  forced 
march  in  summer ;  new  pistols,  good  and  bad,  and  bayonets 
of  many  patterns,  and  devilish  contrivances  which  even  the  in- 
ventor found  difficulty  in  explaining  the  possible  use  of. 

Mr.  Lincoln  patiently  examined  whatever  was  brought  to 
him.  He  took  an  especial  interest  in  improved  rifles.  He  at 
once  accepted  the  idea,  which  the  old  army  men  rejected,  that 
the  breech-loading  rifle  was  the  weapon  sure  of  universal  adop- 
tion in  the  near  future ;  and  whenever  one  was  shown  him  that 
seemed  to  promise  well,  he  did  his  best  to  give  it  a  personal 
trial.  On  the  wide  space  of  open  ground  between  the  "White 
House  and  the  Potomac,  in  the  latter  months  of  1861,  there 
stood  a  huge  pile  of  old  lumber,  nobody  knew  whence  or  why. 
It  was  just  the  thing  upon  which  to  set  up  a  target ;  and  there, 
in  the  very  early  morning,  the  President  of  the  United  States 
might  have  been  seen,  accompanied  by  one  of  his  private  secre- 
taries, diligently  firing  away  with  the  last  new  invention,  and 
forming  his  own  opinions  of  its  prospective  usefulness.  He 
came  as  near  as  was  possible  to  being  arrested  there,  one 
morning,  for  using  fire-arms  within  the  city  limits  contrary  to 
existing  military  regulations.  He  was  in  the  act  of  stooping 
on  one  knee  for  a  very  careful  aim,  when  a  "  corporal  of  the 
guard"  with  a  squad  of  men  came  running  down  upon  him  to 
make  the  seizure  called  for  by  their  orders.  A  chorus  of  an- 
gry shouts  dropped  suddenly  into  silence,  however,  and  the 
whole  squad  turned  and  ran  away  faster  than  they  came 
when  the  stooping  culprit  stood  erect  and  they  had  a  good 


WORK   WITH  RAW  MATERIALS.  273 

look  into  the  smiling  face  of  the  President.  His  only  remark 
was: 

"  Well,  they  might  have  staid  and  seen  the  shooting." 

This,  truly,  was  not  very  good,  considered  as  marksmanship, 
for  Mr.  Lincoln  had  never  acquired  accuracy  in  that  accom- 
plishment, even  among  the  Indiana  backwoods. 

After  the  gathering  of  armies,  the  appointment  of  a  small 
army  of  generals,  and  the  creation  of  a  war  organism,  one 
more  question  lay  heavy  on  the  heart  and  brain  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln. It  was  one  he  was  to  carry  for  a  long  time,  for  it  re- 
lated to  the  discovery  of  a  great  commander.  Immediately 
after  the  battle  of  Bull  Run  it  was  necessary  to  relieve  Gen- 
eral McDowell — under  whose  nominal  leadership  and  in  spite 
of  whose  ability  and  good  conduct  that  well-fought  battle  had 
been  thrown  away — of  the  command  of  the  forces  defending 
"Washington.  He  was  succeeded,  under  the  advice  of  Lieu- 
tenant-General Winfield  Scott,  by  Major-General  George  B.. 
McClellan,  an  accomplished  officer,  favorably  known  as  a  mili- 
tary scholar  and  writer,  and  also,  to  the  country  generally,  by 
reason  of  the  successes  achieved  by  the  troops  under  his  com- 
mand in  West  Virginia,  which  were  then  attributed  to  his 
generalship.  That  they  occurred  without  his  especial  compli- 
city and  almost  without  his  knowledge  was  not  accurately  as- 
certained until  a  later  day. 

General  McClellan,  in  the  beginning,  was  a  great  and  wel- 
come relief  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  his  services  were  appreciated 
to  the  uttermost.  He  was  young,  ambitious,  overflowing  with 
bodily  vigor  and  high  spirits,  and  he  was  thoroughly  equipped 
with  the  technical  knowledge  and  skill  required  for  the  present 
emergency.  It  is  entirely  safe  to  say  that  a  better  selection 
could  not  have  been  made  at  the  time,  since  the  chosen  gen- 
eral possessed  a  peculiar  genius  for  organization.  That  his 
genius  as  a  military  commander  went  but  little  beyond  the 
range  of  faculties  so  to  be  now  employed  was  not  discovered 
until  a  different  set  of  circumstances  called  upon  him  for  the 


274  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

exercise  of  powers  of  whose  very  absence  he  was  sincerely  ig- 
norant. 

On  the  resignation  and  retirement  of  General  Scott,  in  the 
following  November,  General  McClellan,  as  the  then  senior 
major-general  of  the  army,  was  advanced  to  the  chief  com- 
mand. It  was  his  serious  misfortune  that  with  his  advance- 
ment he  accepted  and  retained  a  vague  idea  that  the  President, 
a  mere  civil  and  elective  functionary,  had  somehow  ceased  to 
be  his  military  superior  and  actual  commander-in-chief . 

Through  all  the  trials  and  changes  which  followed,  it  is  well 
to  say  here,  Mr.  Lincoln  never  materially  modified  his  original 
estimate  of  General  McClellan  and  much  regretted  his  inability 
to  add  to  it.  Just  before  the  final  act  of  removing  him  from 
command,  he  at  last  remarked  to  a  member  of  his  personal 
staff : 

"  For  organizing  an  army,  for  preparing  an  army  for  the 
:field,  for  fighting  a  defensive  campaign,  I  will  back  General 
McClellan  against  any  general  of  modern  times.  I  don't  know 
but  of  ancient  times,  either.  But  I  begin  to  believe  that  he 
will  never  get  ready  to  go  forward !". 

It  was  said  with  somewhat  of  sadness  but  with  more  than 
ordinary  emphasis,  for  it  implied  that  the  forward  movement 
was  of  more  importance,  in  the  eyes  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  than  were 
the  personal  fortunes  of  'any  one  commander.  That  was  a 
point  overlooked  by  many  people,  both  then  and  afterwards. 

McClellan  assumed  command  on  July  27,  1861.  The  work 
of  equipping  the  army  and  navy  went  steadily  forward.  The 
Southern  statesmen  and  generals  toiled  at  their  similar  task 
on  the  other  side  of  the  now  rigidly  tightening  army  lines. 
Mr.  Lincoln  saw  more  and  more  clearly  the  magnitude  of  the 
struggle  before  him,  while  hourly  the  people  began  to  clamor 
more  loudly  for  the  battles  and  victories  which  were  not  ready 
and  did  not  come. 


NEW  NATIONAL  LIFE.  375 


CHAPTEK  XXXY. 

NEW   NATIONAL   LIFE. 

A  Shattered  Idol — A  New  State — Contraband  of  War — Transitions  and 
Processes — Lincoln  a  Dictator — The  Law  of  Revolution. 

IT  is  not  altogether  easy  at  this  day  to  understand  how 
deeply  ingrained  in  the  minds  of  the  American  people  was 
once  the  idea  of  the  legality  of  human  slavery.  Only  a  small 
percentage  of  even  the  men  who  cast  their  votes  for  Abraham 
Lincoln,  in  1860,  were  thorough-going  enemies  of  slavery  for 
its  own  sake,  or  were  at  all  entitled  or  willing  to  be  classed  as 
"  Abolitionists."  If,  however,  those  who  hated  the  institution 
were  few  at  the  beginning,  every  day  of  the  continuance  of  the 
war  added  to  their  numbers.  Every  drop  of  good  blood  wasted 
by  the  slaveholders'  rebellion  intensified  the  horror  with  which 
human  bondage  fast  grew  to  be  regarded.  Nevertheless,  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  yet  required  a  prolonged  and 
severe  course  of  instruction  and  of  mental  and  moral  awaken- 
ing to  prepare  them  for  the  final  breaking  of  the  old-time  idol. 

Mr.  Lincoln  knew  very  well  that  slavery  must  perish.  He 
had  so  declared  in  public  and  in  private.  He  was  fully 
convinced,  from  the  first,  that  the  downfall  of  the  Eebellion 
must  carry  with  it  the  destruction  of  the  one  cause  and  object 
of  the  Rebellion,  but  his  own  hands  were  for  the  moment  tied. 
He  was  fettered  by  the  opinions  and  prejudices  of  the  very 
people  upon  whom  he  was  calling  and  depending  for  men  and 
money.  He  was  fettered  by  the  prevailing  sentiment  of  the 
army  itself  and  by  that  of  many  of  its  best  commanders.  He 
was  fettered  by  the  unforfeited  legal  rights  of  slaveholders  in 


276  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  District  of  Columbia,  Maryland,  Delaware,  Kentucky, 
Missouri,  and  that  part  of  Virginia  known  as  "West  Virginia, 
which  had  loyally  repudiated  the  "  ordinance  of  secession"  on 
the  23d  of  May. 

In  this  latter  area,  indeed,  an  important  political  action  had 
followed.  The  Union  men  in  about  forty  counties,  between 
the  Allegheny  Mountains  and  the  Ohio  River,  strengthened  by 
the  presence  of  Northern  troops  and  by  their  first  successes  in 
arms,  held  a  convention  of  delegates  at  Wheeling,  as  early  as 
June  11,  1861.  They  provided  speedily  for  a  new  State  gov- 
ernment, and  the  Legislature  gathered  under  the  direction  of 
the  convention  met  at  Wheeling,  on  the  first  day  of  July,  to 
declare  its  adhesion  to  the  Union  and  to  elect  two  Senators  of 
the  United  States.  These  latter  were  sworn  in  as  members  of 
the  Senate  on  the  13th  of  July,  but  it  was  not  until  two  years 
later  that  the  new  State  of  West  Virginia  was  admitted  into 
the  Union  as  a  separate  commonwealth. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  dealing  with  a  subject  of  which  he  had 
made  a  life-long  study.  He  was  hourly  studying  it  now,  and 
clearly  perceived  the  delicate  and  dangerous  nature  of  the  situ- 
ation. The  deeply  rooted  prejudices  of  millions  were  not  to 
be  trifled  with.  Time  must  be  given  for  changes  to  take 
place,  and  these  would  be  made  at  great  cost  of  blood  and 
treasure  and  untold  suffering ;  but  the  price  so  to  be  paid  for 
them  was  unavoidable. 

Nevertheless,  at  the  very  threshold  of  the  war,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  compelled  to  meet  and  deal  with  the  African- American 
slave,  in  actual,  personal  presence.  Eager,  hopeful,  jubilant, 
the  colored  men  and  women,  by  day  and  by  night,  came 
marching  into  every  camp  on  the  long  border.  They  brought 
their  children  with  them  when  they  could,  and  their  continual 
arrival  seemed  to  shout  in  the  ears  of  the  troubled  ruler,  whom 
they  already  regarded  as  a  divinely  appointed  deliverer : 

"  Here  we  are !     What  are  you  going  to  do  with  us  ?" 

The  whole  country  heard  it,  more  or  less  distinctly,  and 


NEW  NATIONAL  LIFE.  277 

floods  of  conflicting  counsels  as  to  the  matter  and  manner  of 
the  answer  poured  in  upon  the  President. 

There  were  men  among  his  newly  appointed  generals  who 
were  ready  and  willing  to  answer  it  for  him  as  to  the  areas 
under  their  direction,  oblivious  of  the  need  of  uniformity  in 
the  policy  to  be  pursued  and  of  some  other  important  con- 
siderations. 

Decidedly  the  best  solution  of  the  difficulty  was  offered  by 
General  B.  F.  Butler,  himself  a  former  pro-slavery  Democrat. 
Accepting  in  its  fullness  the  idea  that  slaves  were  not  human 
beings  but  mere  personal  property,  they  were  also  "  property 
used  for  military  purposes,"  of  many  kinds,  and  so,  when  cap- 
tured or  found,  were  "  contraband  of  war,"  as  much  as  a  loaded 
musket  or  a  quartermaster's  wagon.  They  could  not  be  sent 
back  to  strengthen  the  military  hands  of  the  enemy,  and  few 
"  Contrabands"  were  returned  to  their  owners  after  the  slightly 
grotesque  idea  became  well  lodged  in  the  minds  of  the  army 
and  its  officers.  The  practice  in  this  respect  varied  much  for 
a  while,  but  a  fair  degree  of  uniformity  came  at  last  in  the 
sure  course  of  human  events.  All  Mr.  Lincoln  could  do  was 
to  prevent  pernicious  haste,  and  this  he  managed  to  accom- 
plish. His  precise  action  in  the  most  important  case  arising, 
that  of  Fremont  in  Missouri,  was  complicated  with  other  con- 
siderations, and  must  be  treated  in  another  place.  There  is, 
however,  something  not  a  little  absurd  in  the  idea  entertained 
and  advocated  by  many :  that  for  a  number  of  months,  at  and 
about  this  time,  Mr.  Lincoln  ceased  to  be  the  earnest  foe  of 
slavery  he  so  long  had  been,  and  that  he  was  afterwards  happily 
reconverted  in  time  to  write  and  issue  the  proclamation  of 
emancipation,  in  1863.  He  underwent  no  such  falling  away, 
and  he  required  no  such  subsequent  change  of  heart  and  pur- 
pose. In  order  to  perceive  the  entire  consistency  of  his  course 
it  is  but  necessary  to  form  an  approximately  correct  idea  of  the 
condition  of  our  national  affairs  and  of  his  relations  to  them  in 
the  remaining  months  of  the  year  1861  and  during  1862. 


278  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  country  was  semi-chaotic  in  all  its  conditions,  foreign 
relations  and  domestic  affairs  alike,  political,  moral,  financial, 
and  industrial.  A  revolution  had  arrived  and  was  progressing 
which  affected  every  citizen  in  all  his  relations  in  life,  and  the 
very  excitement  men  were  under  prevented  all  but  a  very  few 
from  perceiving,  studying,  or  comprehending  the  changes  they 
were  passing  through.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  an  embodiment  and  expression  of  these  changes.  He  also 
was  developing,  learning,  advancing,  and  it  is  enough  for  his 
greatness  that  he  was  at  all  points  and  continually  so  much 
more  advanced  than  other  men,  and  so  much  better  informed, 
that  he  was  able  to  lead  them  wisely  and  not  into  ruin. 

The  national  government  at  Washington,  such  as  it  was 
prior  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion,  had  been  the  object  of 
varied  degrees  of  patriotic  devotion,  but  the  average  American 
voter  had  but  a  faint  and  fragmentary  understanding  of  his 
duties  relating  to  it  or  of  its  rights  and  powers  relating  to- 
him. 

These  latter  might  be  exceeded  with  impunity  by  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, so  far  as  the  masses  of  the  people  were  concerned,  so  long 
as  his  action  accorded  at  all  with  their  conception  of  what  it 
was  best  for  him  to  do.  It  is  therefore  not  very  far  from  the 
truth  to  say  that  the  President  assumed  and  freely  used,  from 
time  to  time,  all  powers  required  by  any  emergency  as  being 
conferred  upon  him  by  the  emergency.  If  these  powers  were 
also  conferred  upon  him  by  the  Constitution  and  the  laws,  as 
previously  interpreted,  so  much  the  better  for  those  instru- 
ments and  for  their  previous  interpretation.  If  not,  it  would 
answer  equally  well  if  Congress  afterwards  should  pass  laws 
covering  the  matters  involved,  and  if  the  Constitution  should 
be  duly  amended  at  the  defective  spot  so  discovered.  Such  is 
the  fundamental  law  of  all  human  societies  in  all  revolutionary 
states  and  conditions.  For  Mr.  Lincoln  to  have  failed  to 
utilize  this  would  have  been  idiotically  weak  and  would  have 
involved  sure  destruction  of  the  interests  in  his  keeping. 


NEW  NATIONAL  LIFE.  279 

From  the  first,  nevertheless,  all  efforts  were  made  to  avoid 
unnecessary  interferences  with  vested  rights  or  the  well-being 
of  individuals.  Mr.  Lincoln's  own  personal  characteristics 
came  to  the  front  in  this  connection.  A  large  part  of  his  daily 
annoyances  came  to  him  on  account  of  his  kindly  inability  to 
turn  a  deaf  ear  to  a  story  of  suffering  or  injustice.  Any  power 
he  at  any  time  assumed  or  exercised  was  taken  not  to  himself 
at  all.  It  was  but  a  means  applied  to  a  manifest  use,  and,  so 
far  as  he  could  determine,  the  best  and  most  righteous  means 
for  the  best  and  most  righteous  use.  He  toiled  patiently  and 
unselfishly.  In  such  a  multiplicity  of  duties  his  mind  knew  no 
rest,  turning  hourly  from  one  branch  of  his  responsibilities  to 
another.  He  grappled  resolutely  with  every  problem  put  to 
him  by  his  needs  for  action,  foreign  or  domestic.  It  seems 
clear  to  those  who  knew  him  best  that  he  himself  perceived, 
as  did  many  of  his  nearer  observers,  the  swift  and  steady 
growth  of  his  own  capacities  as  a  ruler  of  men.  His  inner  life 
expanded  under  the  intense  heat  of  his  trials.  The  strength  of 
his  will,  the  iron  resolution  which  lay  behind  his  easy-man- 
nered kindliness,  had  been  manifested  day  by  day  from  his 
very  childhood ;  but  the  world  contains  a  multitude  of  strong- 
willed,  resolute,  able,  successful  men  not  one  of  whom  con- 
tains the  rare  material  whereof  a  Revolution  may  construct  for 
its  needs  a  competent  Ruler. 

The  times  were  testing  him  in  many  ways.  Weaker  men, 
often  more  brilliant  in  many  expressions  of  capacity,  began  to 
come  frequently  into  what  resembled  collisions  with  him.  It 
was  all  but  amusing,  now  and  then,  to  witness  their  surprise  at 
their  own  helplessness  in  such  trials  of  their  strength  as  had 
not  called  upon  him  for  conscious  exertion,  just  as  in  the  early 
days  he  had  quietly  held  out  at  arm's  length  the  burly  wrestler 
from  Clary's  Grove. 

He  was  now  about  to  enter  upon  the  most  prolonged  and 
perplexing  of  these  collisions,  and  the  only  one  which  at  any 
time  seemed  to  present  elements  of  public  peril.  His  course 


280  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

in  the  management  of  all  minor  difficulties  may  be  rationally 
gathered  or  imagined  after  obtaining  a  fair  understanding  of 
the  first  struggle  between  "military  authority"  and  "civil 


supremacy." 


PRESIDENT  AND  GENERAL.  •      281 


CHAPTEK  XXXVI. 

PRESIDENT   AND   GENERAL. 

The  Army  of  the  Potomac — Newspaper  Acrobats — The  President's  Mail — 
Work  of  the  Private  Secretaries — Army  Organization — An  Advance 
which  was  Not  Made — Offensive  and  Defensive  War. 

THE  routine  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  office-work,  during  this  first 
summer  and  autumn,  as  afterwards,  was  varied  by  occasional 
visits  to  the  camps  and  forts,  where  he  was  always  welcomed 
with  enthusiasm.  The  personal  attachment  for  him  among  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  army  grew  faster  and  became  stronger  than 
his  critics  and  enemies  were  at  all  willing  to  believe. 

His  evenings  at  home  were  also  varied  now  not  unf requently 
by  visits  at  the  house  of  the  general  in  command  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomace,  when  McClellan  happened  to  be  in  the  city. 
The  President's  course  and  personal  relations  with  him  for  a 
time  were,  as  nearly  as  might  be,  those  of  a  confiding  and 
familiar  friend.  The  entire  mass  of  the  written  correspond- 
ence between  them  bears  witness  to  such  a  state  of  things.  In 
the  eyes  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  nearest  advisers  he  seemed  even  too 
indifferent  to  all  rules  of  military  etiquette,  and  also  to  a  very 
apparent  assumption  and  arrogance  in  act  and  manner  on  the 
part  of  his  brilliant  subordinate.  These  were  as  yet  of  minor 
consequence,  and  the  main  thing,  after  all,  was  that  the  work  in 
hand  should  be  done. 

There  were  great  things  going  on  in  those  days  in  the  "West 
and  elsewhere;  and  of  these  we  shall  take  due  note  farther 
on.  But  at  the  present  juncture  we  have  to  do  with  matters 
which  then  chiefly  engaged  Mr.  Lincoln's  attention,  and  that 


282  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  the  country  at  large  throughout  the  Atlantic  States.  To 
the  minds  of  people  at  Washington  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
was  the  Army  of  the  United  States.  It  was  very  important, 
certainly ;  and  its  splendid  commander  with  his  glittering  staff 
dashing  through  the  streets  like  a  small  earthquake-in-new- 
unif  orm  were  a  wonder  which  must,  men  thought,  dazzle  the 
eyes  of  all  the  millions  who  were  not  there  to  see.  The  coun- 
try at  large  was  but  moderately  dazzled,  and  the  President  not 
at  all.  He  knew  that  the  area  of  the  war  extended  beyond 
the  picket-lines  of  that  one  army,  for  he  was  watching  the 
swift  fluctuations  of  success  and  disaster  to  the  farthest 
frontier.  He  was  also  studying  the  rapid  changes  of  thought 
and  purpose  among  the  people,  and  knew  what  a  continual 
battle  there  was  in  the  souls  of  men  and  women  all  over  the 
North.  He  grew  more  and  more  absorbed  in  his  work  and 
more  difficult  of  approach  upon  any  but  needful  business. 

Nevertheless  it  was  during  these  months  that  he  almost  en- 
tirely gave  up  any  attempt  at  reading  the  newspapers.  He  at 
one  time  instructed  one  of  his  private  secretaries  to  make  a 
daily  digest  of  the  attitude  of  the  leading  journals  as  editori- 
ally expressed. 

It  was  actually  so  done  for  about  a  week.  The  President 
glanced  at  the  digest  once  or  twice,  during  that  time,  but  he 
discovered  how  little  he  really  cared  for  it  all,  and  told  the  young 
man  to  return  to  more  useful  work.  There  were  too  many 
sudden  "  revolutions,"  perhaps,  in  the  attitudes  assumed  by  the 
journalists,  while  there  was  really  but  one  with  which  he  or 
the  people  had  anything  to  do. 

The  mail  of  the  Executive  Mansion,  always  large,  had  now 
grown  to  a  volume  which  was,  probably,  not  afterwards  in- 
creased. Its  very  size  shut  out  all  probability  of  its  examina- 
tion by  Mr.  Lincoln  himself.  Counting  packages  of  docu- 
ments as  one  "  letter,"  the  number  of  letters  of  all  kinds  varied 
from  two  hundred  to  two  hundred  and  fifty  each  day.  The 
range  of  subjects  treated  by  the  writers  was  about  as  wide  as 


PRESIDENT  AND   GENERAL.  283 

the  human  imagination.  It  is  possible  that  three  per  cent  of 
these  communications,  including  subsequent  references,  were 
at  some  time  seen  by  the  President.  About  half  were  sure  to 
relate  to  business  belonging  to  bureaus  of  the  several  executive 
departments  and  were  at  once  forwarded  to  the  proper  places. 
The  other  half  might  contain  a  few  which  required  filing  in 
the  President's  own  office  for  reference.  The  secretary's  waste- 
basket  received  the  mass  remaining,  of  advice,  abuse,  fault-find- 
ing, insanity,  egotism,  and  threats  of  personal  violence.  A 
careful  estimate  shows  that  of  all  the  letters  sent  by  mail  to 
Mr.  Lincoln,  at  this  time,  he  saw  and  read,  at  the  time  of  their 
arrival,  about  one  in  a  hundred :  less  rather  than  more.  The 
fact  illustrates  forcibly  the  absorption  of  his  mind  and  the 
pressure  upon  his  time  and  energies,  for  it  had  been  his  life- 
long habit  to  examine  with  care  every  paper  that  came  to  him 
from  any  source,  however  humble.  Even  when  some  epistle 
of  uncommon  importance  prompted  the  secretary  in  charge 
to  urge  its  contents  upon  him,  the  response  was  sure  to  be, 
"Well,  what  is  it?"  and  a  digest  in  brief  was  expected  unless 
the  letter  itself  were  of  the  briefest. 

With  the  more  persistently  intrusive  official  and  legislative 
multitude  it  was  not  possible  to  deal  in  a  similar  way.  It 
was  out  of  the  question  to  put  the  most  selfish  of  men  into 
a  waste-basket,  nor  was  it  easy  to  transfer  such  a  person  to  his 
proper  bureau.  Nevertheless,  the  secretaries  in  charge  of  the 
matter  did  succeed  in  performing,  for  the  throngs  of  callers,  a 
process  analogous  in  some  of  its  results  to  that  employed  upon 
the  mails. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  time  and  strength  were  saved  for  him  to  the 
extent  of  their  very  good  ability,  and  they  protected  him  from 
untold  annoyances.  It  was  a  good  while  before  the  President's 
patience  gave  way  and  he  came,  at  last,  to  their  assistance. 
Embodied  pertinacities  would  succeed  in  getting  in  their  "  cards" 
and  securing  interviews  to  which  they  were  not  entitled. 

Very  much  this  state  of  things  continued,  to  the  end.     Time 


284  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

did  but  perfect  the  simple  and  unostentatious  machinery  with 
which  the  President  performed  his  duties.  He  did  but  put 
himself  continually  into  more  complete  connection  with  and 
relations  to  the  vast  and  complicated  organism  of  national  ad- 
ministration  which  was  fast  assuming  shape  and  efficiency. 

In  every  corner  of  the  country,  all  imaginable  interests  were 
adjusting  their  relations  to  the  government,  or  discovering  that 
they  had  any,  mainly  through  the  varied  means  by  which  they 
were  induced  to  take  upon  them  some  share  of  the  public 
burdens  or  were  able  to  derive  profit  from  the  public  expen- 
ditures. 

Of  all  the  formative  processes,  in  all  their  ramifications,  no 
other  man  knew  or  could  know  so  much  as  did  Mr.  Lincoln. 
~No  better  example  can  be  given,  perhaps,  than  the  creation  of 
the  first  Army  of  the  Potomac.  The  credit  of  this  has  been 
generally  accorded  to  McClellan,  and  the  President  is  himself 
a  witness  that  his  first  commander  did  zealously  and  well  the 
part  that  by  nature  and  assignment  belonged  to  him.  There  is 
a  sense  in  which  it  was  the  part  of  a  truly  great  Orderly  Ser- 
geant, and  ignorance  only  can  underestimate  or  despise  a  work 
so  vitally  important. 

The  men  who  were  to  form  that  army  had  been  gathered  by 
Mr.  Lincoln,  as  has  been  seen,  and  they  were  now  in  the 
service  of  the  United  States  under  due  form  of  law.  The 
selections  of  regimental  officers  had  been  made  under  State 
authorities. 

The  appointment  of  brigade,  division,  and  corps  commanders 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  President.  So  of  all  appointments  in 
the  Ordnance,  Commissary,  and  Quartermaster  services ;  and 
the  connection  of  these  with  the  War  Office  continued  to  be 
more  or  less  direct,  even  after  they  were  ordered  to  duty. 
Their  efficiency  depended  largely  upon  that  of  their  specific 
official  superiors,  and  these  were  practically  on  the  staff  of  the 
President.  The  latter  had,  therefore,  not  only  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  the  army,  but  an  especial  respon- 


PRESIDENT  AND   GENERAL.  285 

sibility  concerning  its  operations.  It  was  this  which  gave  him 
the  right  to  complain  when  after  all  had  been  done  except 
the  duty  of  the  field-commander,  performance  failed  to  follow 
preparations  and  so  vast  and  costly  a  machine  remained  com- 
paratively unemployed. 

This,  as  hinted  above,  grew  to  be  Mr.  Lincoln's  chief  care 
during  that  momentous  winter  of  1861-2.  As  is  well  known, 
an  "  advance"  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  been  planned, 
and,  by  an  order  issued  by  the  President  on  the  27th  of  January, 
it  was  to  take  place  on  the  22d  of  February.  Every  effort  had 
been  made  that  there  should  by  that  time  be  at  least  a  show  pre- 
sented to  the  nation  of  something  to  come  of  all  the  sacrifices  it 
was  making.  The  President  knew  but  too  well  the  profoundly 
disturbed  and  irritated  state  of  public  feeling.  He  knew  how 
much  of  justice  was  in  the  eager  popular  demand  for  "  action," 
and  had  been  uttering  it  continually  in  every  form  of  speech  and 
writing.  He  had  studied  and  planned  and  provided,  toiling  by 
day  and  night  that  nothing  required  should  be  lacking.  He 
was  intensely,  absorbingly  interested,  and  had  been  positively 
assured  that  the  ordered  advance  would  be  duly  made.  He 
was  not  in  any  manner  undeceived  until  a  day  or  two  before 
the  date  assigned.  He  was  alone  in  his  room  when  an  officer 
of  General  McClellan's  staff  was  announced  by  the  door-keeper 
and  was  admitted.  The  President  turned  in  his  chair  to  hear, 
and  was  informed,  in  respectful  set  terms,  that  the  advance 
movement  could  not  be  made. 
"  Why  ?"  he  curtly  demanded. 
"  The  pontoon  trains  are  not  ready — " 
"  Why  in  hell  and  damnation  ain't  they  ready  ?" 
The  officer  could  think  of  no  satisfactory  reply,  but  turned 
very  hastily  and  left  the  room.  Mr.  Lincoln  also  turned  to  the 
table  and  resumed  the  work  before  him,  but  wrote  at  about 
double  his  ordinary  speed. 

Little  apology  is  called  for  by  the  precise  manner  of  his  ex- 
pression ;  entirely  at  variance  from  his  habit  of  speech,  it  was 


286  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

extorted  from  him  by  the  awful  pressure  of  months  concen- 
trated in  the  intense  irritation  of  an  instant. 

While  all  the  records  of  that  period  and  particularly  his  own 
correspondence,  official  and  private,  are  full  of  strong  commen- 
taries upon  the  fidelity  with  which  he  labored  for  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  he  was  equally  hard  at 
work  for  and  with  every  other  army.  He  by  no  means  neg- 
lected the  Navy,  and  he  shared  with  Mr.  Seward  the  pressure 
of  foreign  affairs.  No  commander,  of  course,  could  give  due 
weight  to  all  this,  or  more  than  a  thought  or  so  to  the  questions 
of  finance  and  national  politics,  without  a  due  care  of  which  by 
the  President  the  armed  forces  could  not  be  kept  in  the  field. 

There  were  times  when  General  McClellan  seemed  even  less 
able  than  other  military  men  to  grasp  an  idea  which  conflicted 
with  the  fulfilment  of  his  own  demands,  and  his  capacity  for 
waiting  a  little  longer  was  marvelous. 

As  early  as  October  27,  1861,  he  officially  reported,  to  the 
Secretary  of  War,  that  he  had  under  his  command,  ready  for 
duty,  147,695  men,  of  all  arms,  with  additional  forces,  not  yet 
ready  for  duty  but  in  course  of  preparation  and  soon  to  become 
so,  that  swelled  his  muster-roll  to  168,318.  More  men  were 
constantly  arriving,  and  the  question  in  the  minds  of  the 
people  and  their  President  was  identical :  "  Why  is  not  some- 
thing decisive  done  with  such  an  army  ?" 

No  sufficient  answer  was  given,  then  or  afterwards ;  or  ever 
can  be. 

For  an  advance,  leaving  the  capital  well  protected,  General 
McClellan  officially  reported  that,  at  that  date,  he  had  at  his 
disposal  76,285  men  and  228  pieces  of  artillery. 

The  President  felt  that  his  relations  to  the  forces  in  the 
field  were  not  altogether  conferred  upon  him  by  the  article  in 
the  Constitution  which  declared  him  the  Commander-in-Chief . 
Peculiarly  was  it  true  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  that  he  had 
created  it.  Governors  of  States,  generals,  heads  of  bureaus, 
all  subordinate  agencies,  had  done  their  duty.  The  people  had 


PRESIDENT  AND  GENERAL.  287 

responded  nobly  to  every  call.  Still  it  was  true  that  no  such 
army,  or  any  army  at  all,  would  then  have  been  upon  the  Po- 
tomac if  the  President  had  awaited  the  action  of  States  and 
governors  and  legislators.  The  organization  of  both  army  and 
navy  had,  in  his  mind,  preceded  the  fall  of  Sumter,  and  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  found  its  nucleus  in  the  regular  and 
volunteer  recruits  he  began  to  gather  in  the  last  weeks  of 
April,  1861.  But  for  this  nucleus  the  subsequent  "  army" 
would  have  formed,  if  at  all,  elsewhere  than  on  the  line  of  the 
Potomac. 

The  reports  of  General  McClellan  show  that  50,000  men 
were  prepared  for  field-duty  during  each  consecutive  thirty 
days,  from  July  27  to  October  27.  The  South  had  been  at 
work  longer  and  had  accomplished  less,  because  its  equally  effi- 
cient subordinates  had  a  less  competent  head  to  direct  and  sus- 
tain them.  That  this  was  true  was  made  less  important  from 
the  technically  defensive  nature  of  the  war  to  be  carried  on  by 
them  and  the  character  of  the  areas  to  be  defended.  For 
Southern  purposes,  except  as  to  the  numbers  arrayed  for  any 
one  encounter,  every  hundred  men  they  could  raise  and  equip 
at  home  was  an  offset  to  three  hundred  of  the  far  distant 
Northern  recruits ;  for,  the  value  of  individual  soldiers  being 
equal,  the  longer  the  march  of  a  Union  army  to  a  battle-field, 
the  more  was  its  likelihood  of  being  outnumbered  when  it 
arrived. 

The  Confederates,  therefore,  had  men  enough.  The  "  Cop- 
perheads" of  the  North  were  useful  allies  to  them  at  all  times. 
Europe  aided  them  in  many  ways.  Even  the  stormy  zeal  of 
impatient  patriots  in  the  free  States  sometimes  fought  for  them. 
They  found  help  of  some  kind  at  every  turn.  They  found  an 
unintentional  but  extraordinary  co-operation  in  the  prolonged 
idleness  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  It  is  not  too  much  to 
say  that,  in  the  early  fall  of  1861,  Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  to  have 
a  splendid  army  at  his  disposal,  but  was  compelled  to  waste  the 
months  until  spring  in  obtaining  the  adoption  of  digested 


288  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

plans  for  its  employment.  The  result  was  that,  at  the  last,  the 
army  was  in  no  better  condition  for  actual  service ;  the  plans 
finally  acted  upon  were  fragmentary  and  incomplete ;  time  and 
money  and  much  precious  human  life  had  been  thrown  away ; 
and  the  campaign  which  followed  did  but  crown  the  mournful 
record  with  the  fruits  of  hesitation,  in  disaster  and  discourage- 
ment. 


DICTATOR  AND   CONGRESS.  289 


CHAPTEE  XXXVII. 

DICTATOR   AND   CONGRESS. 

The  Legislative  Branch — The  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War — 
Useful  Interference — Councils  and  Umpires — Political  Complications 
Beginning — Civilian  and  Soldier. 

THE  position  of  President  Lincoln  in  the  year  1862  cannot 
be  studied  advantageously  without  a  glance  at  his  relations  to* 
the  National  Legislature  which  assembled  at  Washington  in. 
the  winter. 

Congress  came  together  with  the  majority  of  its  membership 
in  a  red  heat  of  patriotism.  There  was  a  minority,  indeed,  and 
the  material  for  an  "  opposition,"  but  only  a  very  few  ultraists 
cared  to  be  known  as  anti-war  men.  Omitting  the  extreme 
Copperheads,  every  member  was  under  a  sort  of  triple  pres- 
sure : — of  his  own  ideas  as  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war ;  of  a 
knowledge  of  the  feverish  eagerness  of  his  constituents  for  the 
suppression  of  the  Rebellion ;  and  of  the  even  greater  eager- 
ness of  a  persistent  fraction  of  that  same  constituency  to  obtain 
civil  or  military  offices  under  the  general  government. 

There  were,  indeed,  a  great  many  offices  to  be  given,  and 
these  were  all  nominally  at  the  disposal  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  He 
had  a  vast  amount  of  trouble  in  avoiding  the  onerous  respon- 
sibility of  giving  that  wide  business  his  personal  attention. 
He  succeeded  fairly  well,  but  could  not  escape  altogether.  He 
drily  remarked  of  it  all  that  there  were  twenty  applicants  for 
each  office,  and  every  time  he  filled  one  he  made  twenty  ene- 
mies. The  nineteen  were  enemies  because  they  were  dis- 
appointed, and  the  man  appointed  hated  him  because  he 


290  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

thought  he  ought  to  have  a  better  place  or  because  he  was  in- 
debted for  it  to  some  other  man. 

As  a  body,  Congress  was  profoundly  ignorant  of  the  Dicta- 
torship, although  a  few  voices  made  bold  to  denounce  it.  The 
idea  prevailed  that  the  government  had  traveled  thus  far  by 
virtue  of  the  work  done  during  the  hasty  summer  session  of 
1861.  The  President  had  obeyed  and  followed  very  well,  but 
must  now  be  again  taken  in  hand  a  little.  It  was  not  long  be- 
fore the  "  Legislative  Branch"  of  the  government  began  to  in- 
terfere with  the  "  Executive  Branch"  in  military  matters.  It 
was  a  little  more  patriotic  than  constitutional,  but  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  no  manner  of  objection.  "When,  in  December,  1861,  Con- 
gress appointed  a  strong  and  capable  "  Committee  on  the  Con- 
duct of  the  War,"  its  members  were  at  once  taken  into  hearty 
and  intimate  consultation.  What  would  surely  have  been  a 
peril  or  a  hindrance  to  a  weak  or  a  selfish  ruler  was  trans- 
formed at  once  into  an  additional  and  powerful  guaranty  of 
Congressional  co-operation.  It  was  not  so  much,  thencefor- 
ward, that  Congress  had  assumed  a  part  of  the  Executive  pro- 
vince, but  that  the  Executive  had  deftly  provided  himself 
with  personal  and  official  representatives  upon  the  floor  of 
JSenate  and  House. 

This  Committee,  constantly  advised  with,  cordially  invited 
to  investigate,  to  consider,  to  come  and  to  go,  and  to  know 
everything  before  it  happened,  became  a  priceless  safety-valve 
for  the  growing  discontent  over  inexplicable  delays.  Without 
it,  there  can  now  be  little  question  that  Mr.  Lincoln  would 
have  been  more  seriously  misunderstood  and  even  antagonized 
by  the  body  of  men  nominally  represented  by  the  committee. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  is  Constitutionally  the 
Commander-in- Chief,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  was  also  actually 
Dictator  ;  but  he  was  entirely  at  ease  as  to  all  his  rights  and 
dignities  when  a  joint  committee  of  Senators  and  Representa- 
tives freely  summoned  before  them  his  military  officers,  by  the 
dozen,  and  called  for  their  views  of  things  in  general  and  their 


DICTATOR  AND   CONGRESS.  291 

professional  opinions  of  battles  and  campaigns.  He  knew  be- 
forehand that  the  sure  result  would  be  the  strong  and  unani- 
mous sympathy  of  that  "  jury"  of  clear-headed  men,  with  him 
personally,  and  their  approval  of  the  general  outlines  of  his 
policy,  however  much  they  might  disagree  among  themselves 
or  with  him  as  to  details  of  specific  operations.  In  the  long 
run  it  turned  out  as  he  expected. 

Congress  had  appointed  seven  of  its  best  men  to  find  fault 
with  the  President,  and  grumble  at  him,  and  agree  with  him, 
and  help  him;  and  to  help  the  nation  stand  by  him  more  firmly 
than  ever.  Changed  in  its  membership  somewhat,  as  time 
went  on,  the  Committee  continued  its  services  to  the  end  of  the 
war.  Never  at  any  time  were  they  of  greater  utility  than  in 
their  close  and  searching  study  of  the  condition  of  the  army 
and  the  causes  of  its  inaction  during  the  long  trial  of  that 
memorable  winter.  At  the  same  time,  their  personal  pressure, 
and  that  of  Congress  exerted  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  through  them, 
was  an  additional  burden  of  no  insignificant  weight. 

It  is  now  very  easy  to  perceive  that  if  the  President  had  at 
once  assumed  the  full  exercise  of  his  nominal  powers  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief,  forcing  a  reluctant  general  and  his  minor 
generals  to  a  course  of  action  for  which  they  avowed  them- 
selves unprepared,  the  results  could  hardly  have  been  other 
than  disastrous.  The  President  fully  understood  this  feature 
of  his  responsibilities,  and  it  was  forcibly  dwelt  upon  by  his 
civil  and  military  advisers.  It  was  also  true  that  the  latter  held 
erroneous  ideas  of  the  Rebel  forces  opposed  to  them,  and  mag- 
nified less  than  fifty  thousand  effective  men  into  a  hundred  and 
fifteen  thousand  in  their  official  estimates ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
no  trustworthy  means  of  refuting  the  error.  He  believed  it 
to  be  one,  but  was  compelled  to  submit  to  its  effects  as  pa- 
tiently as  the  circumstances  permitted.  He  did  so,  but  even 
his  tough  patience  wore  slowly  away,  as  has  been  related,  and 
at  last  became  altogether  exhausted. 

It  has  been  said  and  printed  that  he  "  disclaimed  all  military 


292  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ability,"  and  it  is  true  that  lie  often  spoke  very  modestly  of 
his  pretensions ;  but  the  necessity  was  upon  him,  and  he  contin- 
ually and  distinctly  and  from  the  beginning  exercised  the  im- 
portant functions  of  a  military  umpire.  His  decision  was  final 
in  the  selection  of  plans  and  in  their  modifications  as  campaigns 
progressed.  This  was  equally  true  when  he  yielded  his  own 
opinion  to  that  of  another.  It  was  unavoidable,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  any  one  military  authority  of  well-attested  value.  He 
never  shirked  the  implied  responsibility ;  but  the  records,  so 
far  as  these  are  preserved,  clearly  sustain  the  conclusion  that 
the  announced  and  adopted  decisions  and  plans  attributed 
solely  or  mainly  to  him  were  in  fact  the  verdicts  of  a  sort  of 
perpetual  "  council  of  war"  of  which  he  was  the  conspicuous 
chairman.  This  council  was  of  varying  membership  and  size, 
but  he  made  it  include  not  only  his  maps  and  books  but  the 
best  educated  and  informed  military  capacity  in  the  country. 
To  this  he  added  the  Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War 
and  judicious  selections  from  his  Cabinet.  He  would  gladly 
have  been  relieved  of  a  responsibility  so  heavy.  The  hour 
and  the  man  for  his  relief  came  at  last,  but  neither  had  arrived 
in  1862. 

Now  that  the  veils  of  the  army  lines  are  removed  from  the 
then  hidden  condition  of  the  Confederate  armies  between 
Richmond  and  Washington,  and  all  personal  and  political  con- 
siderations can  be  omitted  from  an  analysis  of  the  situation, 
the  attitude  and  action  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  prior  to  the  Peninsular 
campaign  of  1862,  is  more  than  justified. 

Beginning  in  full  time,  he  had  summoned  an  army  and  had 
strained  all  the  resources  of  the  country  to  prepare  it  for  the 
field.  At  the  earliest  day  of  its  apparent  readiness  he  had 
urged  the  prompt  and  vigorous  use  of  that  army  in  a  forward 
movement.  His  estimate  of  the  opposing  forces  and  their 
power  to  resist  such  an  attack  is  now  proved  to  have  been  cor- 
rect. As  to  specific  plans  of  movements,  military  critics  are 
yet  divided  concerning  the  relative  wisdom  of  such  as  were 


DICTATOR  AND  CONGRESS.  293 

presented  by  General  McClellan,  representing  his  own  council 
of  war,  on  the  one  side,  and  by  Mr.  Lincoln  on  the  other  as 
the  fruit  of  the  joint  skill  and  wisdom  of  the  "council"  over 
which  he  presided.  There  is,  however,  no  longer  any  respect- 
able authority  bold  enough  to  commend  the  inaction  against 
which  the  President  so  earnestly  strove  and  protested. 

The  campaign  on  the  Potomac  was  but  a  part  of  the  load 
upon  his  shoulders,  and  he  was  sufficiently  wise  and  self-con- 
trolled not  to  exercise  the  fullness  of  his  authority,  even  when 
compelled  to  say,  as  he  did  to  General  McDowell,  in  December, 
1861,  "  If  something  is  not  done  soon,  the  bottom  will  be  out 
of  the  whole  affair."  He  was  well  aware  that  a  yet  more  cer- 
tain ruin  to  the  national  cause  would  follow  the  failure  of  any 
great  military  movement  directly  ordered  by  himself,  and  that 
no  campaign  can  be  more  sure  of  failure  than  one  undertaken 
contrary  to  the  will  of  its  controlling  general  and  his  most 
trusted  lieutenants. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  fact  of  all  is  that  the  apparent 
repugnance  to  forward  movements  never  ceased.  It  was  mani- 
fested, under  various  forms,  to  the  very  end  of  the  Peninsular 
campaign,  and  even  later.  It  is  in  vain  now,  but  it  is  hardly  pos- 
sible not  to  ask  the  question  :  "  What  would  have  been  the 
net  results  of  the  campaigns  upon  the  Potomac  in  1861  and 
1862  if  President  Lincoln  had  been  sustained  by  a  general  as 
eager  for  action  as  himself  and  as  correctly  estimating  the 
strength  of  his  own  army  and  the  enemy  ?" 

The  natural  reply  is :  "  "Why,  then,  did  not  Mr.  Lincoln  re- 
move McClellan  at  once  and  appoint  some  other  commander  ?" 
It  was  urged  upon  him  more  than  once  or  twice,  and  he 
answered  it  by  the  homely  anecdote  of  the  man  who  declared 
it  "  a  bad  time  to  swap  horses  when  you  are  crossing  a 
freshet." 

True,  doubtless ;  but  there  was  more  than  a  question  of  mere 
military  expediency  in  the  way,  and  the  President  labored 
under  difficulties  which  are  worthy  of  record. 


294  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

In  some  inscrutable  manner,  General  McClellan  had  become, 
and  was  too  well  aware  of  it,  the  chief  and  representative  of 
that  part  of  the  American  people  which  had  not  given  its  heart 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  however  full  it  might  be  of  genuine  patriot- 
ism. McClellan  was  also  curiously  adopted  by  that  other  part 
of  the  population  which  had  no  patriotism  whatever  and  which 
hated  alike  the  President  and  the  cause  he  represented. 

There  had  not  yet  been  time,  nor  heat,  nor  suffering,  to 
hammer  and  weld  the  nation  into  a  compact  mass  with  refer- 
ence to  the  issues  of  the  war,  and  the  base  upon  which  the 
government  stood  was  appreciably  narrow  and  infirm.  The 
powers  in  the  hands  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  even  as  Dictator,  were 
mainly  executive  and  directory,  rather  than  creative.  He  was 
compelled  to  meet  and  deal  with  all  the  forces  of  the  hour, 
whether  assistant  or  opposing,  just  as  they  were  and  not  as  he 
might  have  wished  them.  There  was  an  indefinite  mark  at 
which  his  power  might  break  in  his  hands  if  unwisely  over- 
strained. He  well  understood  the  unreasoning  enthusiasm 
with  which  the  greater  part  of  the  army  regarded  their  young 
and,  as  they  deemed  him,  their  "  dashing"  commander.  They 
had  seen  him  dash,  frequently  and  at  full  gallop,  through  camp 
after  camp,  accompanied  by  a  brilliant  staff  which  contained 
sprigs  of  European  royalty.  They  had,  indeed,  manipulated 
the  Comte  de  Paris  and  the  Due  de  Chartres  into  "  Captain 
Parry  "  and  "  Captain  Chatters,"  but  these  were  still  a  kind  of 
wandering  king,  and  the  great  general,  the  young  American 
Napoleon,  had  his  tent  full  of  that  kind  of  men  and  was  teach- 
ing them  the  art  of  war.  He  was  also  teaching  it,  they  half 
believed,  to  the  rest  of  the  army  and  to  Congress  and  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  some  day  he  would  give  the  Confederates  a  com- 
plete course  of  instruction. 

The  intensity  of  the  army  jealousy  of  "  civilian  interference" 
offers  an  utterly  ludicrous  aspect  of  the  situation,  considering 
who  and  what  were  the  civilians  in  question  and  who  and 
what  were  the  "  military."  Still,  it  was  a  power  and  not  to 


DICTATOR  AND   CONGRESS.  395 

be  disregarded,  and  had  much  to  do  with  the  President's  long 
endurance  of  General  McClellan's  procrastination.  The  exist- 
ence of  such  an  obstacle  seems  to  have  been  unknown  to  the 
country  at  large  at  the  time,  but  it  was  sadly  set  forth  after- 
wards, in  detail,  in  the  testimony  given  on  the  trial  of  Fitz 
John  Porter,  after  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run. 

The  Peninsular  campaign  was  an  accomplished  failure  before 
the  removal  of  McClellan,  but  that  was  no  hindrance  to  the 
persistent  declaration,  by  his  partisans,  that  the  failure  had 
been  ordained  and  engineered  by  "  civilians"  at  Washington, 
in  order  that  disaster  might  furnish  a  pretext  for  the  removal. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  position  was  one  of  extreme  delicacy,  but  at 
last  the  Confederate  authorities  came  to  his  deliverance.  The 
final  adoption  of  a  plan  of  campaign  for  the  Union  armies  was 
provided  for  at  Eichmond.  Early  in  March,  1862,  the  rebel 
generals  concluded  that  their  forces  at  and  about  Manassas  Gap 
had  bea,rded  and  checked  an  army  three  times  their  strength  as 
long  as  it  was  safe  to  do  so.  They  retreated,  without  striking 
a  blow,  or  so  much  as  giving  warning,  or  even  saying  what 
they  meant  to  do  next. 

So  bitter  and  taunting  a  comment  upon  the  wisdom  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  previous  urgency  enabled  him  to  compel  army  action 
of  some  kind.  At  a  meeting  of  the  corps  commanders  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  on  the  13th  of  March,  the  retreat  of  the 
enemy  was  formally  recognized ;  a  plan  of  an  advance  upon 
Richmond  was  adopted,  approved  by  General  McClellan,  and 
forwarded  to  the  President.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  his 
official  approval  and  reply,  through  the  Secretary  of  War,  was 
instantaneous.  It  bears  the  same  date  of  March  13,  1862. 
Whatever  default  of  energy  or  promptness  might  be  charge- 
able to  others,  not  an  hour  of  precious  time  was  wasted  by  the 
Commander-in-Chief. 

The  joint  dates  of  the  Army  plan  and  of  its  approval  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  once  more  bring  out  the  fact  of  his  continuous 
and  perfect  state  of  preparation.  He  did  not  wait  and  study, 


296  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

because  lie  did  not  need  to  do  so.  He  had  carefully  digested 
the  whole  subject,  and  no  form  of  its  presentation  could  take 
him  by  surprise.  As  he  himself  was  apt  to  remark  when 
seemingly  new  things  were  laid  before  him,  he  had  "  studied 
that  matter,"  and  his  action  upon  it  was  a  foregone  conclusion. 
It  was  said  that  a  plan  had  been  adopted,  but,  after  all,  it 
was  little  more  than  a  determination  that  the  army  should  sail 
down  the  Potomac,  land  on  the  Virginia  side  and  hunt  for 
something  to  do.  It  was  agreed  upon  with  Mr.  Lincoln  that 
the  hunt  should  be  pushed  vigorously  in  the  direction  of  Rich- 
mond, and  he  went  down  in  person  to  urge  and  press  and  aid 
in  every  possible  way  the  magnificent  "  meet "  of  well-armed 
hunters. 


THE  PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN.  297 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII. 

THE   PENINSULAR   CAMPAIGN. 

Monitor  and  Merrimac — The  Story  of  a  Great  Invention — Waiting  before 
Yorktown — Civil  Supremacy  in  Danger — A  Retreat  in  Good  Order — 
A  Perilous  Dilemma — The  Army  of  Virginia — Gen.  Pope's  Campaign 
— A  New  Political  Party — One  Army  Swallowed  by  Another. 

THE  movement  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  been  pre- 
ceded by  a  great  naval  event.  On  the  8th  of  March,  1862,  the 
Confederate  armored  ram  Virginia  or  Merrimac  steamed  out 
into  Hampton  Roads  and  destroyed  several  United  States  ships- 
of-war.  She  demonstrated  in  a  few  minutes  that  any  wooden 
or  other  war  ship  known  to  exist  was  helpless  against  her.  So 
far  as  any  eyes  could  see,  the  Potomac  was  open  to  her,  Wash- 
ington city  was  at  her  mercy,  and  the  face  of  military  affairs 
was  changed.  A  kind  of  Egyptian  darkness  came  down  at 
once,  and,  for  a  few  hours,  men  walked  around  as  if  they  were 
feeling  their  way  in  it. 

On  the  following  day  occurred  the  world-famous  fight  be- 
tween the  Merrimac  and  the  Monitor,  the  latter  being 
described  by  the  Confederates,  as  looking  like  a  Yankee 
cheese-box  on  a  raft.  The  timely  arrival  of  this  revolving 
gun-tower  was  as  little  a  matter  of  human  foresight  as  if  she 
had  fallen  from  the  sky,  and  the  nation  recovered  promptly 
from  its  fit  of  shivering  dread.  The  power  of  the  destroyer 
was  at  least  neutralized  and  things  could  go  on  somewhat  as 
before.  Not  upon  the  sea,  indeed  ;  for  the  naval  construction 
of  all  the  world  was  revolutionized  in  a  day  and  all  the  armed 
vessels  afloat,  except  the  two  which  fought  in  Hampton  Roads, 
became  antiquated. 


298  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  foreseen  the  Merrimac,  but  he  had 
foreseen  the  Monitor  and  her  construction,  and  therefore  her 
presence  and  service  were  as  much  due  to  him  as  was  her  plan- 
ning to  her  inventor.  When  Mr.  C.  S.  Bushnell,  to  whom  the 
Monitor  had  been  intrusted,  and  to  whom  lasting  honor  is  due 
for  his  management  of  the  matter,  arrived  in  "Washington  with 
the  plans  and  specifications  of  the  proposed  vessel,  he  carried 
them  straightway  to  the  President.  Mr.  Lincoln  comprehend- 
ed them  at  once  and  became  deeply  interested.  He  remarked, 
pleasantly,  that  he  knew  but  little  about  ships,  but  he  did  un- 
derstand a  flatboat,  and  this  invention  was  flat  enough.  He 
promised  to  meet  Mr.  Bushnell  at  the  Navy  Department  at 
eleven  o'clock  the  next  day  and  do  all  he  could  in  securing  the 
adoption  of  the  plan  and  the  construction  of  a  "  monitor"  for 
trial.  That  was  precisely  what  she  was  built  for,  no  one 
prophesying  what  the  trial  would  be.  At  the  hour  named  he 
left  the  White  House  and  walked  over  to  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment to  fulfill  his  promise.  A  number  of  naval  officers  and 
other  experts  were  assembled  to  sit  in  judgment,  and  the 
President  listened  patiently  and  silently  to  their  successive  ex- 
pressions of  opinion.  These  were  almost  unanimously  given 
adversely  to  the  practicability  of  the  plan  of  vessel  proposed. 
Finally,  Rear-Admiral  Smith,  chairman  of  the  Naval  Board  in 
charge  of  the  matter,  turned  to  the  President  and  asked  him 
what  he  thought  of  it. 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "  I  feel  about  it  a  good  deal  as 
the  fat  girl  did  when  she  put  her  foot  into  her  stocking.  She 
thought  there  was  something  in  it." 

There  was  a  laugh,  but  everybody  present  understood  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  earnest.  Admiral  Smith,  who  had  been  one 
of  the  few  who  had  understood  and  favored  the  invention,  was 
glad  enough  to  be  sustained  by  the  President,  and  took  it  up 
with  energy.  Mr.  Bushnell  and  his  associates  obtained  their 
contract  for  a  trial-monitor  and  built  it,  and  after  its  work  in 
Hampton  Roads  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  right  to  express  strongly, 


THE  PENINSULAR    CAMPAIGN.  299 

as  lie  did,  his  satisfaction  over  the  fact  that  he  "  had  given  the 
Monitor  a  lift"  at  the  time  when,  without  it,  she  would  have 
remained  an  inventor's  dream. 

The  "co-operation  of  the  Navy"  was  now  more  than  ever  a 
factor  in  the  plans  of  the  Army,  and  it  was  given  with  hearty 
efficiency.  The  troops  were  shipped  and  landed  without  any 
greater  number  of  blunders  than  mark  the  records  of  similar 
feats  of  transportation  in  other  wars.  The  enemy  were  in  a 
bad  condition  to  withstand  the  forward  push  the  President 
continually  urged.  He  was  so  anxious  for  action  that,  early  in 
May,  with  Secretaries  Stanton  and  Chase  and  General  Yiele  of 
the  Engineers,  he  went  down  to  Hampton  Roads  on  the  U.  S. 
steamer  Miami,  to  see  for  himself  how  matters  were.  This 
happened  (May  11)  just  as  Norfolk  was  abandoned  and  the 
Merrimac  blown  up  by  the  retiring  Eebels.  It  is  now  well 
known,  too,  that  McClellan  could  have  marched  to  the  very 
gates  of  Richmond  with  but  moderate  hindrance  if  he  had 
not  discovered  a  sort  of  reproduction  of  the  "Manassas  lines," 
with  another  imaginary  host  behind  them.  These  were  pro- 
vided him  by  the  petty  defenses  at  Yorktown,  and  before  these 
he  promptly  sat  down.  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  and  urged  in  vain. 
It  is  not  needful  to  deal  with  all  the  details  of  what  may  be 
considered  a  purely  "tactical"  controversy.  The  result  was  a 
simple  and  natural  sort  of  repetition  of  the  previous  lesson. 
The  army  lay  before  Yorktown  for  a  month,  and  the  Confed- 
erate purpose  in  holding  the  place  had  been  accomplished. 
"When  it  was  done,  the  few  obstructing  regiments  and  guns  at 
Yorktown  were  quietly  removed,  and  the  Rebellion  had  again 
secured  the  results  of  a  great  victory  without  fighting  a  battle. 

The  remainder  of  the  Peninsular  campaign  belongs  to  the 
military  history  of  the  war  and  not  to  the  Life  of  Lincoln. 
At  and  before  its  outset  and  until  it  was  completed  and  aban- 
doned, the  President  was  confronted,  for  the  first  and  last 
time,  with  the  peril,  common  to  all  human  revolutions,  that 


300  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  personal  power  and  position  of  a  favorite  military  officer 
might  enable  him  to  predominate  over,  or  at  least  be  practically 
independent  of,  the  civil  authority. 

That  General  McClellan  was,  perhaps  unintentionally,  per- 
haps almost  unconsciously,  the  exponent  of  that  peril,  was  but 
imperfectly  discerned  by  the  President,  for  a  time.  It  was 
more  clearly  perceived  by  others,  following  the  course  of  events 
on  the  spot,  and  narrowly  watching  the  demeanor  of  General 
McClellan  in  personal  interviews  with  the  President  or  with 
his  own  subordinates.  It  was  yet  more  clear  to  those  who 
listened  to  much  of  the  ill-advised  talk  among  some  of  the 
latter.  It  can  even  more  plainly  be  discerned,  at  this  day,  by 
any  student  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  examine  the  official 
reports  and  correspondence.  ~No  man  can  now  pretend  to  de- 
clare what  might  have  been  the  consequences  to  the  country  if 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  less  firm  or  less  wisely  forbearing  and 
patient.  A  weak  or  hasty  man  in  the  President's  chair  would 
surely  have  fallen  from  it,  if  not  in  name,  at  least  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  and  his  power  would  have  passed  into  the  hands 
of  the  Army  Commander. 

As  for  the  latter,  all  he  really  required  was  time  to  offer  the 
able  leaders  opposed  to  him  the  opportunities  of  which  they 
continually  availed  themselves. 

They  and  not  Mr.  Lincoln  demonstrated  to  the  country  the 
true  rank  of  McClellan  in  the  list  of  celebrated  generals.  It 
is  not  at  all  necessary  to  question  his  zeal,  or  patriotism,  or  un- 
common capacity.  To  briefly  paraphrase  Mr.  Lincoln's  own 
words  concerning  him :  "  For  the  organization  of  an  army,  or 
for  handling  that  army  in  a  defensive  campaign,  second  to  no 
other  general.  For  a  vigorous  advance  movement,  never 
ready."  And  add :  "  When  forced  to  make  such  a  movement, 
incapable  of  so  making  it  as  to  succeed." 

The  last  battle  on  the  Virginia  peninsula  was  fought,  and 
well  fought,  on  the  first  of  July,  1862,  at  Malvern  Hill.  It 
was  the  repulse  of  a  desperate  attempt  of  the  Confederates  to 


THE  PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN.  301 

crush  a  retreating  enemy.  It  brought  out  with  great  clearness 
the  fact  that  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  with  experience  of 
such  battle-names  as  Seven  Pines,  Fair  Oaks,  Mechanicsville, 
and  Cold  Harbor,  had  become  an  army  of  veterans,  and  that 
its  commander  held  it  well  in  hand.  There  was  no  sign  of 
disorganization  or  of  any  lack  of  discipline  or  of  confidence  or 
patriotism  among  the  men.  Their  retreat  was  secured  and 
their  assailants  were  too  badly  shattered  to  repeat  the  attack. 
Still,  the  campaign  was  a  mournful  failure,  and  any  attempt  to 
renew  it,  under  General  McClellan,  would  have  shaken  the 
hold  of  the  government  upon  the  nation.  Neither  could  he, 
then  and  there,  have  been  safely  replaced  by  any  other  gen- 
eral. The  most  distinguished  of  his  lieutenants  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  say  that  they  could  not  and  would  not  step  into  his 
place  if  he  should  be  removed.  It  was,  therefore,  inevitable 
that  the  army  should  abandon  the  effort  to  reach  Richmond  by 
that  road,  and  it  was  accordingly  withdrawn,  by  Mr.  Lincoln's 
orders,  during  the  month  of  August,  1862. 

After  the  withdrawal  an  increasing  importance  began  to 
attach  to  the  declarations  made  by  General  McClellan  as  to 
what  he  could  and  would  have  done  had  he  been  permitted  to 
remain  and  had  he  been  properly  supported.  That  such  asser- 
tions were  made,  and  that  they  were  echoed  in  many  modifica- 
tions, throughout  the  country  by  the  growing  and  organizing 
opposition  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  was  altogether  a  matter  of  course. 
The  fact  of  the  withdrawal  afforded  a  spurious  life  to  proposi- 
tions incapable  of  disproof.  A  direct  issue  was  created  and 
assumed  by  what  had  actually  become  two  jarring  factions  in 
all  the  land. 

If,  therefore,  it  were  possible  to  admit  all  that  was  then  or 
is  now  claimed  by  General  McClellan  and  his  friends,  and  to 
advance,  on  behalf  of  the  Administration,  no  other  fact  than 
this  direct  issue,  that  is  quite  enough. 

The  President  was  compelled  to  relieve  General  McClellan 
of  his  command  at  as  early  a  day  as  was  consistent  with  the 


302  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

proper  care  of  the  army.  To  have  retained  him  would  have 
been  a  public  assumption  by  the  President  of  the  responsibility 
of  his  failure,  and  would  have  rendered  all  but  impossible  any 
further  resistance  to  his  demands.  So  would  Mr.  Lincoln 
have  put  a  fatal  weapon  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies,  at  the 
same  time  that  he  severed  himself  at  a  blow  from  the  patriotic 
masses  who  sustained  him  and  whose  view  of  the  whole  matter 
closely  coincided  with  his  own. 

A  task  of  unusual  delicacy  was  now  before  him.  He  was 
confronting  questions  of  national  politics  and  statesmanship  as 
well  as  of  war  and  the  selection  of  military  leaders.  There 
were  men,  even  among  the  friends  of  the  Administration, 
who  so  grossly  misconceived  the  feelings  of  the  army  as  to 
assert  that  the  soldiers  would  refuse  to  fight  under  any  other 
commander  than  McClellan.  Mr.  Lincoln  troubled  himself 
very  little  about  the  rank  and  file.  He  knew  them  too  well 
to  have  any  doubt  as  to  their  choice  between  a  favorite  officer 
and  their  country.  At  the  same  time,  he  was  indifferent  to 
any  casual  and  hasty  remarks  "  the  boys"  might  make  about 
himself.  They  did  not  make  many  which  would  have  been 
disagreeable  for  him  to  hear.  The  result  showed  that  they 
understood  the  campaign  they  had  been  fighting  better  than 
the  politicians  gave  them  credit  for,  and  they  were  beginning 
to  understand  Mr.  Lincoln  very  well. 

The  main  difficulty  now  in  the  mind  of  the  latter  was  not 
at  all  the  removal  of  McClellan,  but  the  choice  of  his  successor. 
There  were  reasons  for  preferring  one  of  the  well-known  chiefs 
of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  but  a  brief  search  among  them 
failed  to  discover  the  right  man.  Quite  a  number  of  them  had 
exhibited  high  qualities  and  achieved  reputation,  but  no  one 
towered  sufficiently  above  his  brethren  to  be  regarded  by  them 
as  their  selection  for  the  first  place.  Each  general  felt  and  said 
that  he  could  not  take  the  reins  of  his  falling  leader  without 
concentrating  upon  himself  such  jealousy  and  resentment  as 
would  impair  his  usefulness.  What  was  worse,  each  seemed  to 


THE  PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN.  3Q3 

feel  the  same  thing  even  more  strongly  on  behalf  of  any  other 
general  whom  Mr.  Lincoln  might  choose  to  name. 

The  conclusion  was  plain.  It  was  necessary  that  the  new 
commander  should  be  a  man  as  far  as  possible  removed  from 
the  operation  of  corps  jealousies  and  what  might  almost  be  re- 
garded as  family  contentions  and  neighborhood  rivalries. 

Military  operations  in  the  West  had  thus  far  been  upon  a 
smaller  scale  as  to  separate  battles  and  campaigns,  however  vast 
in  aggregate  importance.  A  number  of  competent  men  were 
rapidly  manifesting  their  abilities  and  making  names  for  them- 
selves. Nevertheless  there  had  not  been  time  or  opportunity 
for  any  man  to  establish  his  pre-eminence  as  a  general  com- 
manding large  bodies  of  troops  in  the  field.  The  course  of 
events  had  not  made  a  selection;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not 
actually  make  one,  but  he  did  the  next  best  thing.  He  deter- 
mined to  keep  on  trying  till  he  should  find  what  he  wanted. 

"What  was  called  "  The  Army  of  Virginia"  had  been  organ- 
ized from  the  several  commands  operating  in  the  western  part 
of  that  State,  and.  the  troops  reserved  for  the  protection  of  the 
city  of  Washington.  The  organization  was  nominally  effected, 
on  paper,  by  a  general  order  issued  July  26, 1862,  and  Major- 
General  John  Pope,  an  officer  of  admitted  merit,  had  been 
placed  in  command. 

The  Army  of  Virginia,  therefore,  was  ready  to  receive  and 
absorb  the  several  detachments  of  theArmy  of  the  Potomac,  as 
they  arrived,  on  their  return  from  the  Peninsula.  The  two 
armies  became  somewhat  as  one,  in  that  manner,  under  General 
Pope,  without  any  formal  change  of  commanders;  but  he  had 
no  time  to  get  them  at  all  well  in  hand,  before  he  was  called 
upon  to  meet  the  forces  of  the  Rebellion  upon  their  old  battle- 
grounds in  front  of  the  defences  of  the  national  capital. 
The  evacuation  of  the  Peninsula  had  set  them  free  from  their 
task  of  defending  Richmond.  They  turned  to  the  northward 
and  broke  upon  General  Pope's  army  in  a  series  of  desperate 
encounters,  whose  disastrous  results  offered  a  fitting  appendix 


304  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

to  the  sad  story  which  had  previously  concluded  at  Malvern 
Hill. 

During  nearly  the  whole  course  of  this  fighting,  which  in- 
cluded the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run,  General  McClellan  was 
at  or  near  Washington.  He  was  not  exactly  in  disgrace  or 
"  removed,"  but  he  was  in  the  position  of  a  man  temporarily 
out  of  work,  for  he  was  a  general  without  an  army.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  carefully  avoided  open  collision  with  him,  and  had 
treated  him  in  a  friendly  manner,  personally,  but  the  general 
himself  and  the  whole  country  well  understood  the  situation. 

The  all  but  instantaneous  political  result  justified  the  fore- 
cast of  Mr.  Lincoln's  sagacity,  for  the  Democratic  party  of  the 
North,  destitute  of  great  names  and  leaders,  at  once  took  up 
the  cause  of  McClellan  as  their  own.  They  had  no  other,  and 
it  offered  them  a  rallying-cry.  When,  therefore,  at  the  close 
of  General  Pope's  summer  campaign,  General  McClellan  reas- 
sumed  command  of  the  forces  in  the  field,  he  did  so  as  a  "  po- 
litical idol "  as  well  as  a  military  leader.  It  was  two  years  yet 
to  the  next  Presidential  election,  but  he  was  already  the  Demo- 
cratic candidate.  It  was  altogether  a  new  Democratic  party, 
and  not  the  old,  which  was  then  in  process  of  organization.  It 
was  sweeping  into  its  embraces  all  disappointment,  all  discon- 
tent and  sourness,  and  every  element  hostile  to  Mr.  Lincoln 
personally  and  to  the  manifestly  increasing  antislavery  ten- 
dencies of  the  Republican  party  and  the  Administration. 

If  the  results  of  the  hard  fighting  done  by  the  army  under 
Pope  had  been  less  unfavorable,  a  different  course  might  have 
been  possible,  but  the  close  of  the  month  of  August  left  the 
President  with  no  choice  whatever.  Loud  voices  were  heard  in 
all  the  camps  and  columns  of  the  army.  Not  those  of  any  con- 
siderable majority,  doubtless,  but  likely  to  be  joined  by  others 
if  things  should  continue  to  go  wrong.  It  was  necessary  to 
heed  them  and  to  act  at  once,  for  the  victorious  rebels,  in  spite 
of  the  severe  losses  they  had  suffered,  were  about  to  pour  across 
the  upper  Potomac  and  carry  the  war  into  the  Northern  States. 


THE  PENINSULAR  CAMPAIGN.  305 

Mr.  Lincoln,  as  has  been  seen,  had  no  doubt  at  all  of  General 
McClellan's  capacity  for  the  kind  of  work  now  to  be  required 
of  him.  It  was  not  exactly  a  forward  movement.  There  was 
no  need  to  issue  any  formal  order  reinstating  an  officer  who 
had  never  been  publicly  or  formally  removed  and  who  still  re- 
tained his  full  rank  in  the  army.  Indeed,  so  little  had  been 
done  to  interfere  with  the  personal  cordialities  existing  between 
all  the  parties  concerned,  in  spite  of  the  tremendous  war  of 
words  between  their  respective  admirers  and  defenders,  that 
Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  accompanied  by  General  Halleck,  actually 
called  at  McClellan's  house,  in  Washington,  on  the  morning  of 
the  2d  of  September,  1862,  instead  of  sending  for  him  to  come 
to  the  War  Office  or  the  Executive  Mansion. 

The  whole  affair,  as  it  is  related  by  General  McClellan,, 
sounds  wonderfully  like  Abraham  Lincoln's  lifelong  way  of 
doing  things.  He  had  nothing  to  say  about  the  past  and  was- 
in  no  wise  disturbed  by  any  part  of  his  own  previous  action.. 
He  had,  however,  a  good  deal  to  say  about  the  present  state  of 
affairs  in  the  army.  He  said  it  briefly,  and  then,  relates  ih& 
general :  "  He  instructed  me  to  take  steps  at  once  to  stop  and 
collect  the  stragglers ;  to  place  the  works  in  a  proper  state  of 
defense,  and  to  go  out  and  meet  and  take  command  of  the 
army,  when  it  approached  the  vicinity  of  the  works,  then  to 
place  the  troops  in  the  best  position, — committing  everything  to 
my  hands." 

General  Pope  was  not  "  removed,"  any  more  than  General 
McClellan  had  been.  He  was  still  in  command  of  the  Army 
of  Virginia,  but  was  thus  subordinated  to  General  McClellan. 
Within  two  weeks,  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  had  quietly 
swallowed  the  very  organization  by  which  its  own  separate 
corps  and  divisions  and  brigades  had  previously  been  absorbed, 
as  fast  as  they  arrived  from  the  Peninsula.  This  result  was 
strictly  logical,  for  the  greater  must  contain  the  less,  but  a 
good  half  of  the  troops  now  under  McClellan  were  men  who 
had  not  been  with  him  before  Richmond  and  were  by  no 


306  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

means  his  admirers.  They  were  "  his  men"  only  because  of 
orders  from  headquarters,  and  the  spell  of  his  power  had  been 
broken. 

As  to  the  restoration  of  the  old  name  to  the  consolidated 
mass,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  no  objection.  "  The  boys"  would  fight 
as  well,  or  better,  and  that  was  the  main  thing,  for  they  had 
sharp  work  cut  out  for  them. 

Only  a  small  part  of  the  army  under  Pope  had  been  "  disor- 
ganized," in  any  correct  use  of  that  term.  The  great  mass  of 
them  was  in  good  condition.  The  men  had  fought  well  and 
were  proud  of  it,  and  had  not  lost  confidence  in  their  imme- 
diate commanders.  They  had  fought  so  well,  indeed,  that  the 
forces  under  General  Lee  were  seriously  diminished  in  num- 
bers and  efficiency.  Not  all  the  glory  of  their  barren  victories 
could  make  up  to  them  the  loss  of  so  many  of  their  best  sol- 
diers, both  officers  and  men. 

Had  the  condition  of  the  troops  been  at  all  as  some  have 
misrepresented  it,  active  operations  at  once,  with  those  very 
men,  under  McClellan,  would  have  been  absurdly  impossible. 
As  it  really  was,  he  had  no  manner  of  difficulty  in  getting 
ihem  well  in  hand  as  he  marched.  He  performed  no  miracle, 
and  their  fighting  condition  was  forcibly  exemplified,  in  a  very 
few  days,  at  the  battles  of  South  Mountain  and  the  Antietam. 


MILITARY  POLITICS.  307 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

MILITARY   POLITICS. 

Reconstruction — Jarring  Counsels — Gen.  John  C.  Fremont — A  Premature 
Proclamation — A  Modification — Another  Subordinate  laying  down  the 
Law  to  the  President — A  New  Secretary  of  War — A  Human  Library. 

THE  shattered  aggregate  of  rusty  political  machinery  which 
fell  into  Mr.  Lincoln's  hands,  at  the  close  of  the  Buchanan  Ad- 
ministration, was  not  a  "  government." 

The  tumultuous  mass  of  factions  and  local  organisms  under 
his  nominal  chief  magistracy  was  not  a  "  nation." 

What  he  would  make  of  the  one  and  what  would  become  of 
the  other  were  open  questions  in  the  minds  of  all  men,  of  all 
parties,  in  this  and  other  countries,  and  they  were  very  freely 
debated  in  public  and  in  private. 

The  post  to  which  Abraham  Lincoln  was  really  elected,  and 
the  position  he  proceeded  to  occupy  and  fill,  was  that  of  an  ex- 
pression of  the  deeply  rooted  and  tenacious  popular  will  that 
there  should  be  a  government,  and  a  strong  one,  and  that  this 
government  should  organize  and  perpetuate  a  nation. 

His  whole  life  had  prepared  him  for  the  task.  The  causes 
which  prepared  the  task  for  him  had  been  subjects  of  his  study 
from  boyhood.  He  met  all  difficulties,  as  they  arose,  in  a  man- 
ner which  testified  what  familiar  acquaintances  they  were  and 
how  much  he  had  been  thinking  that  they  might  visit  him 
some  day. 

As  has  been  seen,  the  new  government  took  form  rapidly, 
and  the  solid  ground  of  the  new  nation  began  to  arise  with  a 
very  permanent  look,  through  and  above  the  turbulent  political 
flood. 


308  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

It  was  not  as  yet  easy  to  designate  or  limit  the  powers  of  the 
government  in  "  war  time,"  but  the  ideas  of  other  men  jjs  to 
the  extent  and  nature  of  these  powers  were  more  vague  than 
were  those  of  the  ruler  himself.  He  saw  that  he  had,  as  Presi- 
dent, and  acting  as  Dictator  in  many  relations,  the  power  to  do 
anything  which  the  people  could  be  made  to  see  it  was  need- 
ful or  best  that  he  should  do.  He  had  no  more,  because  that 
and  no  other  is  always  the  limit  of  the  power  of  a  revolution- 
ary autocrat.  The  people  had  many  ways  of  expressing  their 
approval,  and  their  faithful  servant  had  little  need  to  regard 
the  vagaries  of  individuals,  so  long  as  he  was  devotedly  doing 
his  duty. 

It  was  essential  to  the  performance  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  task 
that  no  element  of  substantial  power  should  be  permitted  to 
slip  away  from  him  or  from  either  branch  of  the  central  gov- 
ernment which  he  represented.  Congress  and  the  Judiciary 
and  the  Executive  were  bound  together  as  a  unit.  It  was  nat- 
ural, however,  and  was  a  difficulty  which  came  early  and  never 
departed,  that  the  President  should  find  himself  in  continual 
collision  with  the  political  views,  the  aspirations  and  ambitions, 
of  the  able  men  around  him.  That  these  all  had  views,  aspi- 
rations, and  ambitions,  is  to  be  mentioned  in  their  praise  and 
not  in  blame. 

The  difficulty  arising  from  this  source  was  aggravated 
by  the  fact  that  every  general  in  the  army,  whether  he  would 
or  no,  was  also  in  some  degree  a  political  general  and  possible 
leader.  It  was  of  course  that  many  of  even  the  best  should 
be  aware  of  this  and  should  cultivate  "  doctrinal  views"  of 
their  own,  and  by  these  should  at  times  be  influenced,  more 
or  less,  in  their  uses  of  the  powers  they  derived  from  the  cen- 
tral authority  at  Washington.  Almost  the  first  military  officers 
to  whom  high  commands  were  assigned  at  once  began  to  ad- 
minister those  commands  in  accordance  with  their  political 
leanings  and  lootings  forward.  It  was  safe  to  prophesy  that 
the  country  would  select  its  party  idols  and  rulers,  for  a  gen- 


MILITARY  POLITICS.  309 

eration  or  so  after  the  war,  from  among  those  who  should 
come  out  of  it  in  the  character  of  "  heroes."  Had  the  South 
succeeded,  the  Confederacy  would  necessarily  have  become  a 
sort  of  military  despotism,  sustained  and  governed  by  an 
epauletted  and  army-titled  aristocracy.  Only  the  firmness  and 
wisdom  of  Mr.  Lincoln  prevented  the  Federal  government 
from  drifting,  at  an  early  day,  under  the  control  of  the  rank- 
ing officers  of  its  first  military  organization.  That,  too,  with 
these  very  officers  at  wide  variance  among  themselves  as  to 
vital  questions  of  policy  and  statesmanship. 

Two  instances  suffice  to  illustrate  the  situation  and  vindi- 
cate the  course  pursued  by  Mr.  Lincoln :  and  it  is  not  at  all 
necessary  to  claim  for  him  perfection  of  wisdom  or  of  conduct 
in  either  case.  It  is  necessary  to  say,  however,  that  Mr.  Lin- 
coln did  not  act  from  personal  motives  in  either,  and  that  least 
of  all  did  he  act  from  jealousy  or  unkindly  feeling. 

On  the  same  day  in  which  General  McClellan  assumed  com- 
mand of  the  troops  in  front  of  Washington,  General  John  0. 
Fremont  arrived  in  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  to  take  command  of 
the  Department  of  the  West.  There  was  as  yet  very  little  for 
him  to  take  command  of,  and  two  thirds  of  the  populations  of 
Southern  Illinois,  Missouri,  and  Kentucky,  including  many 
thousands  who  afterwards  became  devoted  supporters  of  the 
national  government,  were  wavering  in  almost  helpless  inde- 
cision as  to  which  way  they  should  go,  to  the  Confederacy  or 
to  the  Union.  In  the  city  of  St.  Louis  itself  leading  business 
men  were  contributing  timidly  to  the  military  funds  of  both 
Rebel  and  Union  undertakings,  and  begging  the  agents  of 
either  side  not  to  make  public  their  names  or  their  payments. 
In  the  rural  districts  of  Missouri  the  loyal  people  were  gen- 
erally overawed  by  their  more  violent  as  well  as  better  pre- 
pared and  organized  antagonists.  In  Southern  Illinois  the 
majority  of  the  people  were  from  Southern  States,  densely  ig- 
norant and  strongly  pro-slavery  in  sentiment.  Their  geo- 
graphical position  and  little  more,  as  yet,  retained  them  under 


310  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  sway  of  an  "  Abolition  government."  Kentucky  was  still 
occupying  an  attitude  of  "  neutrality"  which  was  repudiated 
by  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  which  answered  a  most  important  pur- 
pose in  keeping  the  State  out  of  the  first  mad  rush  of  the  Re- 
bellion. Its  people  were  having  time  given  them  to  think  the 
matter  over  and,  in  due  season,  to  welcome  Federal  armies  as 
deliverers  and  defenders. 

General  Fremont  was  a  brave  and  intelligent  officer,  doubt- 
less, although  he  never  at  any  time  established  a  reputation  as 
a  "  general."  It  is  fair  to  say  that  he  never  had  a  good  oppor- 
tunity. He  had  qualities  of  mind  which  prevented  him  from 
being  a  successful  "  statesman."  He  was  a  man  of  reckless 
daring,  undisguised  ambition,  strong  imagination,  and  was 
already  prominent  as  a  political  leader.  He  had  been  the 
"standard-bearer"  selected  by  the  People's  party  for  their 
hopeless,  but  earnest  and  first  aggressive  campaign  of  1856, 
and  a  good  deal  of  the  popular  enthusiasm  aroused  for  him 
then,  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  still  clung  to  his  name 
in  1861.  The  romance  of  his  early  achievements  as  an  ex- 
plorer of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  of  his  dashing  military 
exploits  in  California,  had  been  made  widely  known  during 
his  presidential  campaign.  There  were  many,  indeed,  who  re- 
garded him  as  in  some  inscrutable  way  the  "  founder"  of  the 
party  which  had  nominated  him,  and  which  was  so  speedily 
reorganized  as  the  Republican  party  after  its  first  brilliant 
struggle. 

General  Fremont  was  a  Radical,  with  an  opportunity  in  his 
hands  for  making  himself  the  representative  man  and  leader  of 
all  the  Radicals  of  the  North.  He  took  the  opportunity  very 
sincerely  but  very  humanly.  His  immediate  ambition,  be- 
yond doubt,  was  patriotic  and  military;  but  it  naturally,  inevi- 
tably, had  a  political  horizon  beyond  and  all  around  it.  There 
is  no  need  of  flinching  a  fact  so  entirely  devoid  of  anything 
blameworthy.  He  had,  at  the  outset,  several  difficulties  with 
the  War  Office  at  Washington,  and  in  some  of  these  the  record 


MILITARY  POLITICS.  311 

favors  him  decidedly.  He  took  hold  of  his  work  with  charac- 
teristic promptness  and  vigor,  and,  under  many  disadvantages, 
began  to  collect  and  arm  troops.  He  also  began  to  fortify  his 
base  of  action,  St.  Louis,  so  that  it  might  be  safely  left  in  sub- 
sequent operations.  So  far  all  was  well ;  but  before  he  had 
forces  enough  to  make  sure  of  any  part  of  his  infant  depart- 
ment, on  the  31st  of  August,  1861,  he  issued  a  proclamation, 
altogether  on  his  own  account.  He  declared  martial  law 
within  specified  limits,  and  threatened  instant  death  to  all 
rebels  found  within  those  lines  with  arms  in  their  hands.  He 
declared  all  real  and  personal  property  of  all  persons  taking  up 
arms  against  the  government  confiscated  to  the  public  use,  and 
their  slaves,  if  they  had  any,  were  declared  free. 

It  was  a  curious  document,  in  which  a  subordinate  army 
officer,  in  charge  of  a  department  under  Mr.  Lincoln,  assumed 
to  exercise  the  joint  and  several  powers  of  the  President,  Con- 
gress, and  the  Judiciary.  It  was  doubtless  intended  as  a  mili- 
tary measure,  to  awe  the  rebel  elements  around  him  and  im- 
prove the  morals  of  his  own  little  army ;  but  it  was,  in  fact, 
something  more.  It  was  a  political  firebrand  hurled  among 
the  combustible  populations  above  described,  and  the  effect 
threatened  to  be  disastrous,  both  there  and  elsewhere.  The 
effect  upon  General  Fremont's  personal  popularity  with  the 
most  loyal  elements  of  the  populations  of  the  free  States  was, 
for  the  moment,  all  he  could  have  asked  for.  He  had  appealed, 
in  one  breath,  to  patriotism,  hatred  of  slavery,  and  to  the  vague, 
popular  lust  for  more  vigorous  measures.  A  great  many  ex- 
cellent people  were  temporarily  misled  into  loud  approval  of 
his  usurpation  of  authority  over  life  and  property,  and  failed 
to  see  the  mad  impolicy  of  his  really  empty  threats.  The  gen- 
eral thus  presented  the  President  with  a  problem  of  more  than 
common  difficulty ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  performed  an 
important  service.  He  at  least  warned  the  waverers  in  the 
doubtful  districts  that  there  might  be  a  wrath  to  come,  and 
many  of  them  needed  such  a  warning.  Even  in  overstepping 


312  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

his  own  powers  he  gave  the  government  an  opportunity  for 
the  better  defining  its  own.  He  directed  the  perceptions  of 
all  men,  in  good  season,  towards  the  sure  result  of  the  Rebel- 
lion— that  "  abolition  of  slavery"  which  so  few  were  yet  pre- 
pared to  face  and  consider. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  disposed  to  give  Fremont  an  opportunity 
for  correcting,  as  of  his  own  motion,  the  more  manifest  ex- 
cesses of  his  proclamation ;  but  the  general  received  his  remon- 
strances, for  such  they  were,  with  a  plain  refusal  to  recede. 
Even  the  President's  intimation  that  Congress  then  had  in  hand 
the  subject  of  the  confiscation  of  rebel  property  does  not  seem 
to  have  opened  the  somewhat  self-willed  commander's  eyes  to* 
the  fact  that  the  legislative  and  judicial  branches  of  the  gen- 
eral government  had  sole  power  for  the  making  of  laws  con- 
cerning the  ownership  of  real  and  personal  property.  As  to 
the  emancipation  of  slaves,  especially,  he  requested  that,  if  his 
proclamation  in  that  regard  were  to  be  modified,  the  President 
should  do  it  for  him,  showing  that  he,  the  general,  had  not  re- 
treated from  a  hasty  and  ill-considered  advanced  position,  but 
had  been  overruled  from  Washington.  He  claimed  that  it  was 
as  much  his  province  to  initiate  such  a  policy,  in  the  depart- 
ment for  which  he  was  responsible,  as  to  adopt  and  order  any 
other  strategic  or  tactical  movement,  as  of  troops.  If  the 
President  disagreed  with  him,  he  prayed  that  the  President 
should  take  the  responsibility  of  publicly  saying  so.  What- 
ever was  Fremont's  motive, — and  no  man  could  question  his 
political  sincerity, — the  effect  of  this  would  be  to  leave  to  him, 
untouched  and  perhaps  augmented,  the  entire  benefit  of  the 
popularity  he  had  evidently  won.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  quite  will- 
ing to  resign  to  the  general  all  that  part  of  the  "  spoils  of  war," 
and  in  a  dispatch  dated  October  6,  1861,  he  said :  "  It  is  there- 
fore ordered  that  said  clause  of  said  proclamation  be  so  modi- 
fied, held,  and  construed  as  to  conform  to  and  not  to  transcend 
the  provisions  on  the  same  subject  contained  in  the  Act  of 
Congress  entitled  '  An  Act  to  confiscate  property  used  for  in- 


MILITARY  POLITICS.  313 

surrectionary  purposes,'  approved  August  6,  1861,  and  that 
such  Act  be  published  at  length,  with  this  order." 

General  Fremont  yielded  externally,  but  set  the  seal  of  his 
disapprobation  upon  the  order  by  manumitting,  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  two  slaves,  the  property  of  a  St.  Louis  rebel.  His 
subsequent  management  of  the  affairs  of  his  department  dis- 
played both  his  abilities  and  peculiarities ;  and  before  the  mid- 
dle of  October — in  spite  of  what  he  had  accomplished  in  rais- 
ing and  equipping  troops,  in  clearing  Missouri  of  guerilla 
bands,  in  securing  Cairo,  an  important  entrepot  for  supplies 
at  the  junction  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers,  in  beginning 
the  afterwards  famous  fleet  of  gunboats,  and  other  efficient 
preparations  for  good  work, — Mr.  Lincoln  felt  compelled  to 
replace  him  by  the  appointment  of  an  officer  less  brilliantly 
erratic  and  with  fewer  probabilities  of  political  aspiration. 
The  entire  nation  better  understood  its  relations  to  both  the 
President  and  the  general  before  the  arrival  of  another  Presi- 
dential election.  At  that  time,  however,  it  was  not  so  well 
comprehended  that  the  President's  action  was  taken  on 
grounds  of  public  policy  and  sound  statesmanship.  It  was 
contrasted  strongly  by  many  with  the  retention  in  power  of 
General  McClellan,  equally  well  known  to  be  in  training  as  a 
candidate  for  political  power,  but  proposing  to  reach  it  by  fol- 
lowing a  very  different  political  highway.  It  is  at  all  events 
to  General  Fremont's  credit  that  his  instincts  were  in  favor  of 
loyalty  and  freedom,  and  his  deeds  in  the  direction  of  military 
activity  and  efficiency. 

At  the  time  of  General  McClellan's  appointment  to  the  com- 
mand of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  he  was  still  a  young  man. 
He  had  his  name  yet  to  win  as  a  commander  in  the  field.  He 
had  attained  neither  experience  nor  distinction  as  a  politician, 
much  less  as  a  statesman.  He  had  no  position  whatever,  ex- 
cept as  one  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  military  subordinates.  Neverthe- 
less, so  strong  were  the  temptations  of  the  hour  and  so  mani- 
fest were  the  openings  leading  to  possible  political  eminence, 


314  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

that  we  speedily  find  him  undertaking  to  advise  and  even  to 
direct  the  policy  of  the  government.  It  is  almost  beyond  be- 
lief at  this  day,  but  in  less  than  one  year  from  his  appointment, 
under  date  of  July  7, 1862,  we  find  General  McClellan  writing 
to  President  Lincoln  from  Harrison's  Landing,  and  that  too 
with  his  Peninsular  campaign  just  behind  him,  as  follows : 

"  Military  power  should  not  be  allowed  to  interfere  with  the 
relations  of  servitude,  either  by  supporting  or  impairing  the 
authority  of  the  master,  except  for  repressing  disorder,  as  in 
other  cases." 

This  meant,  being  interpreted : 

"  Whatever  else  may  be  the  object  of  this  war,  it  must  not 
disturb  Slavery,  and  any  slave  accidentally  relieved  of  his  fet- 
ters must  have  them  replaced  as  soon  as  the  accident  can  be 
provided  for." 

The  tone  and  matter  of  that  letter,  or  of  any  one  of  several 
others,  supply  a  window  through  which  can  plainly  be  dis- 
cerned the  writer's  estimate  of  his  own  position,  prerogative, 
and  power,  as  well  as  his  clear  understanding  that  a  large  con- 
stituency in  the  army  and  among  the  people  already  regarded 
him  as  their  political  representative. 

How  nearly  correct  his  estimate  was  may  partly  be  gathered 
from  the  election  returns  of  the  year  1864.  A  study  of  these, 
and  of  events  between  their  date  and  the  date  of  this  letter  to 
Mr.  Lincoln,  will  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  in  July,  1862,  he 
was  more  strongly  fortified  as  a  political  leader  than  he  ever 
was  afterwards.  He  was  strong  then  in  every  respect  but  in 
his  lack  of  the  legal  authority  to  retain  his  military  command 
for  one  day  after  Mr.  Lincoln  should  decide  that  he  had  held 
it  long  enough.  If  an  election  could  then  have  been  held,  its 
results  would  have  been  vastly  more  in  doubt.  That  was  but 
nine  months  after  the  removal  of  Fremont,  and  nothing  had 
occurred  in  the  interim,  East  or  West,  to  encourage  the  people 
as  to  the  probable  end  and  outcome  of  the  war.  The  more  ex- 
posed of  the  districts  endangered  by  the  over-hasty  zeal  of 


MILITARY  POLITICS.  315 

Fremont  were  still  being  fought  over,  backwards  and  forwards, 
with  varying  successes,  by  contending  armies.  The  "  successes" 
had  not  exhibited  quite  so  much  variation  on  the  Potomac,  and 
this,  too,  was  laid  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  door. 

It  was  plainly  needful  that  General  McClellan  should  be  in- 
duced to  give  up  playing  President  for  a  little  while.  It  was 
impossible  to  give  him  troops  for  the  renewal  of  his  advance 
upon  Eichmond,  even  if  it  had  been  wise  to  do  so.  His  urgent 
demand  for  them  was  denied  and  overruled,  but  the  fact  that 
the  President  had  no  troops  which  could  safely  be  sent  him 
was  one  which  he  and  his  partisans  could  and  did  ignore. 
Nevertheless,  his  political  fortunes  culminated  when  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac  was  transferred,  even  in  part  and  for  a  few 
days,  from  under  his  immediate  command. 

It  was  but  for  a  few  days,  apparently.  General  Pope's  sum- 
mer campaign  of  hot  marches  and  hard  battles,  by  no  means  all 
of  which  are  to  be  classed  as  defeats,  must  be  regarded  as  little 
more  than  a  campaign  to  keep  the  enemy  occupied  and  checked 
during  the  removal  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  from  Harri- 
son's Landing  to  Acquia  Creek  and  the  lines  opposite  Wash- 
ington. The  fighting  covered  a  retreat. 

At  this  time  the  country  at  large  believed  itself  to  be  strain- 
ing its  every  nerve  to  carry  on  the  war.  It  was  mistaken,  but 
the  time  had  not  come  for  the  safe  application  of  greater  pres- 
sure. The  assistance  of  Congress  would  be  required  for  that. 
The  President's  powers  were  temporarily  restricted  to  the 
utilization  of  such  war  material  as  he  had  on  hand  or  within 
easy  reach.  It  did  not  suffice  for  the  creation  of  new  armies 
to  be  expended  by  General  McClellan  on  the  wrong  road  to 
Richmond. 

Other  changes  had  taken  place.  The  Department  of  "War 
had  been  revolutionized  during  the  first  months  of  1862. 
When  Mr.  Lincoln  appointed  Simon  Cameron  his  first  Secre- 
tary of  War,  he  unintentionally  assigned  that  very  capable  gen- 
tleman to  a  post  at  which  he  was  as  sure  to  fall  as  was  the  color- 


316  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

bearer  of  a  "  forlorn  hope."  Upon  him  rushed  the  first  and 
most  impudent  swarm  of  contractors,  speculators,  adventurers, 
plunderers  of  every  name  and  kind.  Upon  him  surely  fell  the 
hasty  anger  of  the  people  for  the  inevitable  crudities  of  the 
first  year  of  the  existence  of  the  army.  He  was  compelled  to 
resign,  for  the  good  of  the  service ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  answered 
his  detractors  by  appointing  him  minister  to  Russia,  the  best 
national  friend  we  then  had  among  the  larger  powers  of 
Europe.  Mr.  Cameron  doubtless  had  his  defects  as  a  Secre- 
tary of  War  in  such  a  time,  but  his  career  enabled  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  make  up  his  mind  as  to  the  kind  of  man  the  place  required. 
He  knew  just  such  a  man.  His  name  was  Edwin  M.  Stanton, 
a  resident  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  an  old-time  Democrat 
in  politics,  a  lawyer  of  distinction,  but  without  popularity  any- 
where or  personal  following  of  any  kind.  He  was  absolutely 
sure  never  to  have  either.  His  sturdy  loyalty  had  been  proved 
as  by  fire  during  a  brief  service  as  a  member  of  Buchanan's 
last  Cabinet.  He  had  helped  to  keep  the  governmental  wreck 
from  being  entirely  swept  away  before  Mr.  Lincoln's  arrival. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  met  Mr.  Stanton  before  that  day,  and  knew 
him  to  be  the  possessor  of  certain  personal  qualities  which  were 
as  rare  as  they  were  likely  now  to  become  valuable.  'In  the 
summer  of  the  year  1859  Mr.  Lincoln  went  to  Cincinnati, 
Ohio,  as  one  of  the  associate  counsel  in  the  great  "  McCormick 
reaper  case."  The  leading  counsel  on  his  side  was  Mr.  Stanton, 
and  that  gentleman  had  imbibed  a  bitter  prejudice,  political  or 
otherwise,  against  his  ungainly  colleague  from  Illinois.  Such 
was,  in  consequence,  his  habitual  and  pointed  rudeness  that 
Mr.  Lincoln's  self-respect  compelled  him  to  retire  from  the 
case.  When  he  got  home  he  remarked  that  he  "  had  never 
been  so  brutally  treated  as  by  that  man  Stanton." 

He  was  with  him  long  enough,  however,  to  discover  in  him 
a  peculiar  executive  ability,  tirelessness,  disregard  of  obstacles, 
and  a  ravenous  capacity  for  the  mastery  of  details,  rare  indeed 
among  men,  while  the  bluntness,  directness,  even  the  harshness 


MILITARY  POLITICS.  317 

amounting  to  brutality,  were  gifts  eminently  desirable  in  the 
Secretary  of  "War  of  the  United  States  during  the  years  which 
were  now  to  follow.  It  was  a  certainty  that  men  would  have 
no  ground  whereon  to  accuse  Mr.  Stanton  of  favoritism  or  of 
paltering  with  treason,  and  his  official  chief  would  never  be  in 
effect  betrayed  by  weak-kneed  subserviency.  The  latter  con- 
sideration was  almost  beyond  price  in  those  days. 

The  new  Secretary  would  be  just  the  man  to  stand  between 
the  Treasury  and  the  contractors,  at  the  same  time  that  he 
would  relieve  the  President  of  some  of  the  most  trying  respon- 
sibilities of  army  management. 

There  was  much  criticism  of  this  appointment  among  the 
friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  and  they  gave  him  loads  of  advice. 
He  was  urged  to  appoint  a  man  from  New  England,  or  one 
who  might  be  considered  in  some  beneficial  manner  politically 
or  geographically  representative.  He  had  done  a  great  deal  of 
that  sort  of  thing  in  the  first  organization  of  his  Cabinet,  and 
the  net  results  had  not  impressed  him  with  its  importance  as  a 
source  of  anything  he  was  now  in  need  of.  He  did  not  believe 
that  any  one  segment  of  the  national  territory  contained  a  man 
sufficiently  representative  of  its  population  to  be  able  to  add  an 
ounce  of  strength  to  the  Administration  by  his  appointment 
to  office.  He  was  well  aware,  on  the  other  hand,  that  much 
strength  might  easily  be  lost  by  the  appointment  of  a  man  ob- 
noxious to  extremists  of  any  description. 

Mr.  Stanton  had  not  as  yet  made  himself  offensive  to  any 
faction  or  fraction.  To  wise  friends  who  expressed  a  fear  of 
mischief  to  come  from  what  they  called  his  "  impulsiveness," 
Mr.  Lincoln  replied  :  "  Well,  we  may  have  to  treat  him  as  they 
are  sometimes  obliged  to  treat  a  Methodist  minister  I  know  of 
out  West.  He  gets  wrought  up  to  so  high  a  pitch  of  excite- 
ment in  his  prayers  and  exhortations  that  they  are  obliged  to 
put  bricks  in  his  pockets  to  keep  him  down.  We  may  be 
obliged  to  treat  Stanton  the  same  way,  but  I  guess  we  will  let 
him  jump  awhile  first." 


318  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  restraining  power  hinted  at  in  the  anecdote  was  always 
at  Mr.  Stanton's  elbow.  His  superfluous  energy  consumed 
itself  in  such  ceaseless  toil  that,  when  the  war  was  ended  and 
the  duties  to  which  Mr.  Lincoln  assigned  him  were  all  done, 
the  great  War  Secretary  had  expended  his  life  for  his  country 
and  very  soon  lay  down  for  his  long  rest.  That  he  would 
make  countless  enemies  was  well  understood  in  the  hour  of  his 
appointment,  and  that  he  continually  did  so  was  no  surprise  at 
all  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  That  he  should  make  many  mistakes, 
especially  in  minor  matters  rapidly  decided  and  acted  upon, 
was  as  certain  as  sunset,  but  he  never  once  made  the  cardinal 
blunders,  in  such  a  time,  of  cowardice,  indecision,  or  inaction. 
He  was,  as  nearly  as  might  be,  the  very  man  Mr.  Lincoln  re- 
quired for  the  hard  place  he  was  called  to  fill.  He  supplied 
qualities  and  training  which  had  not  been  given  to  the  Presi- 
dent. Between  the  two  men,  so  different,  so  strangely  thrown 
together,  there  grew  to  be  a  bond  of  mutual  reliance  which 
had  in  it  a  remarkable  thread  of  personal,  human  tenderness. 

The  constant  study  of  military  questions  forced  upon  Mr. 
Lincoln's  mind  a  perception  of  certain  other  defects  in  his  own 
preparation  for  the  post  of  Commander-in-Chief.  Lack  of 
technical  knowledges  and  of  the  specific  trainings  of  the  mili- 
tary schools  hampered  him  at  every  turn,  and  it  was  too  late  for 
him  to  take  a  "  West  Point  course"  of  education.  He  could 
not  even  give  the  time  required  for  the  full  examination  of 
authorities  or  for  miscellaneous  consultations  with  all  the  gen- 
erals from  all  the  multiplying  commands.  It  was  needful, 
therefore,  that  he  should  have  at  his  elbow  some  man  whose 
carefully  tilled  and  well-stored  brain  should  be  in  itself  a 
library  of  military  sciences  and  knowledges,  with  all  its  vol- 
umes ready  to  open  at  the  page.  Precisely  such  a  man  had  been 
made  ready  for  him  in  the  person  of  Major-General  Henry 
W.  Halleck.  This  officer  had  already  distinguished  himself  by 
his  management  of  affairs  intrusted  to  him  in  the  West,  but 
Mr.  Lincoln  perceived  that  his  best  services  were  not  to  be 


MILITARY  POLITICS.  319 

rendered  in  the  field.  He  was  essentially  a  military  scholar, 
having  devoted  his  life  to  studies,  researches,  and  writings,  of 
such  a  nature  and  quality  as  to  mark  him  unmistakably  as  the 
man  of  men  to  supply  Mr.  Lincoln's  technical  and  other  de- 
ficiencies. On  the  llth  of  July,  1862,  General  Halleck  was 
appointed  General-in-Chief  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United 
States,  and  reached  Washington  in  the  latter  part  of  the  month 
to  assume  control.  It  was  not  an  unimportant  consideration 
that  thenceforth  generals  of  armies  in  the  field  would  receive 
their  orders  from  a  professional  soldier,  ranking  them,  and  not 
from  a  "  civilian"  of  any  grade  whatever. 

It  is  easy  to  overlook  or  belittle  the  practical  statesmanship 
displayed  in  the  creation  of  such  an  office  as  that  to  which 
General  Halleck  was  appointed.  The  "  statute  laws"  of  the 
land  made  no  mention  of  it,  and  the  appointment  carried  with 
it  no  permanent  promotion  or  increase  of  pay.  The  "  General- 
in-Chief  "  had  a  thankless  task  before  him :  almost  as  much 
so  as  had  the  Secretary  of  "War.  Victories  won  would  surely 
give  all  their  glory  to  the  generals  in  immediate  command  of 
the  forces  winning  them.  Sore-hearted  men  in  search  of  scape- 
goats for  the  blame  of  defeats  and  failures  would  continually 
have  one  prepared  and  named  for  them  at  the  right  hand  of 
the  President  at  Washington.  He  would  receive  small  credit 
for  good  advice,  and  his  powers  for  preventing  mischief  were 
limited  on  every  side  in  spite  of  his  sounding  title.  This  was 
strikingly  exemplified  by  the  results  of  the  Fredericksburg 
campaign,  undertaken  against  his  counsel,  lost  as  he  expected, 
and  much  of  the  blame  of  it  cast  upon  his  head  by  a  host  of 
uninformed  faultfinders. 

It  was  of  the  last  importance  to  the  stability  of  the  Admin- 
istration that  the  tides  of  sure  disappointment  and  discontent 
should  rise  and  dash  and  be  dissipated  against  such  breakwaters 
as  Stanton  and  Halleck  and  not  be  permitted  to  assail  injuri- 
ously the  one  man  whose  personal  hold  upon  the  popular  heart 
and  confidence  was  vital  to  the  existence  of  the  nation.  Stu- 


320  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

dents  of  the  Constitution  of  the  British  Empire  may  possibly 
find  an  analogy  there  by  looking  for  it. 

It  may  fairly  be  said  that  the  close  of  the  summer  of  1862 
found  Mr.  Lincoln's  official  staff,  for  the  first  time,  fully  pre- 
pared to  deal  with  the  work  before  him  and  them.  Surely  a 
year  and  a  half  was  no  excessive  length  of  time  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  so  great  a  feat  of  wisdom  in  selection.  He  had 
done  well  with  such  materials  as  he  had  within  his  reach  in  the 
beginning.  It  is  not  easy  to  see  how  he  could  have  done  bet- 
ter. Now,  at  last,  he  was  efficiently  provided,  but  before  him 
opened  gloomily  "  the  dark  days"  of  the  war.  The  prospect  or 
hope  of  a  speedy  collapse  of  the  Rebellion  had  disappeared, 
and,  for  the  moment,  the  Nation  stood  upon  the  defensive. 


DRAWN  BATTLES.  321 


CHAPTEK  XL. 

DRAWN   BATTLES. 

The  Fighting  under  Pope — News  from  the  Army — The  Changes  of  Com- 
manders— Lee  in  Maryland — The  Antietam — Exhausted  Patience — 
Removal  of  McClellan — A  Great  Misunderstanding. 

THE  position  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  during  the  last 
week  of  August,  1862,  and  the  days  next  following,  called  for 
the  exercise  of  uncommon  firmness  and  discretion. 

General  McClellan  arrived  from  Harrison's  Landing  on  the 
24th  of  August,  and  reported  to  General  Halleck  for  orders.. 
On  the  27th  he  removed  his  quarters  from  Acquia  Creek  to> 
Alexandria,  and  was  assigned  to  the  duty  of  forwarding  troops, 
to  General  Pope.  It  was  a  time  of  universal  gloom  and  deep 
excitement.  The  tongues  of  rumor,  detraction,  of  every  kind 
of  bitterness,  were  so  busy  with  all  the  questions  of  the  hour 
that  it  was  impossible  to  sift  the  true  from  the  false  of  even 
what  purported  to  be  "evidence."  This  difficulty  was  seri- 
ously complicated  by  the  practical  untrustworthiness  of  any 
dispatches.  The  general  in  command  had  done  his  duty  and 
knew  it,  and  his  despatches  expressed  his  indomitable  courage 
and  confidence  much  more  accurately  than  they  did  the  con- 
dition of  the  army  or  the  results  of  recent  battles. 

On.  the  30th  of  August  was  fought  the  battle  of  Manassas 
(commonly  called  the  Second  Battle  of  Bull  Kun) ;  and  the 
Battle  of  Chantilly,  which  followed,  may  be  regarded  as  part  of 
it  so  far  as  the  effect  upon  the  army  or  people  is  concerned.  A 
part  of  the  army  had  behaved  badly  and  was  demoralized,  but 
only  a  part.  It  was  unfortunate  that  the  country  at  large  and 
the  soldiers  out  of  the  fight  obtained  a  first  and  lasting  impres- 


322  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

sion  of  the  fighting  under  Pope  from  stragglers  of  broken  regi- 
ments reporting  to  newspaper  correspondents.  More  was  lost 
in  this  way  than  could  easily  be  remedied.  General  Pope 
himself  reported  of  the  Bull  Run  affair :  "  The  troops  are  in 
good  heart  and  marched  off  the  field  without  the  least  hurry  or 
confusion.  Their  conduct  was  very  fine.  .  .  .  The  enemy  is 
badly  whipped,  and  we  shall  do  well  enough.  I  think  this 
army  entitled  to  the  gratitude  of  the  country." 

General  Halleck  was  inclined  to  take  the  same  view  of  the 
matter,  and  said  to  General  Pope,  "  You  have  done  nobly." 

So  he  had.  And  the  more  carefully  the  records  of  that  short 
campaign  are  searched,  the  better  is  the  figure  cut  by  its  gen- 
eral, with  some  reservations  as  to  his  use  of  the  pen.  He 
seems  to  have  been  unaware  of  the  feeling  and  opinion  exist- 
ing among  some  of  his  subordinates.  So  was  General  Halleck, 
for  a  few  days.  But  no  such  blindness  troubled  Mr.  Lincoln. 
The  President  had  heard  from  the  Army  in  many  ways,  and 
even  from  an  informal  council  of  war  of  its  corps  and  division 
commanders. 

There  was  something  almost  dramatic  about  that  "  council " 
.and  its  consequences.  Immediately  after  the  Second  Battle  of 
Uull  Run,  a  call  was  made  upon  the  civil  employees  of  the 
"Washington  Departments  for  volunteers  to  go  over  into  Vir- 
ginia and  aid  in  caring  for  the  wounded.  Many  went ;  and 
among  them  was  a  brother  of  one  of  the  President's  secretaries. 
This  young  man  was  met  upon  the  field  by  a  corps  commander 
whom  he  knew,  and  was  at  once  taken  to  the  headquarters  of 
another  corps  commander.  Other  well-known  officers  were 
present  or  were  sent  for.  They  came,  they  remained  a  longer 
or  shorter  time,  they  conversed  freely  and  went  away.  The 
young  man  was  directed  to  note  down  every  name  and  every 
statement  of  opinion  given,  but  not  to  be  understood  as  doing 
anything  of  the  kind.  It  was  a  strictly  confidential  inter- 
change of  military  views  of  the  situation,  and  some  of  the  ex- 
pressions were  quite  strong  and  marked  by  individualities.  At 


DRAWN  BATTLES.  323 

the  close,  the  corps  commander  remarked  to  his  young  friend : 
"  We  could  not  send  all  that  in  a  dispatch  to  Washington ;  but 
the  quicker  it  is  repeated  to  the  President,  the  better  for  the 
army  and  the  country." 

Means  of  rapid  transportation  were  at  once  provided,  and 
the  next  morning  the  weary,  muddy,  and,  from  his  services 
among  the  wounded,  somewhat  bloodstained  young  man  was 
closeted  first  with  Mr.  Lincoln  and  then  with  General  Halleck 
and  Mr.  Stanton.  The  details  of  his  report  were  never  made 
public :  but  Mr.  Lincoln  had  heard  from  the  army.  He  had  the 
unanimous  though  unofficial  and  entirely  free  opinion  of  a 
dozen  of  its  best  officers,  perhaps  of  a  score,  that  it  could  no 
longer  be  successfully  handled  by  General  Pope,  with  the 
added  assurance  that  these  men  spoke  for  large  numbers  of 
their  companions  of  all  grades  and  arms.  Of  the  officers  who 
constituted  that  informal  but  important  council  of  war,  some 
knew  not  at  all  that  they  were  members  of  it,  but  more  spoke 
with  a  full  understanding  and  spoke  directly  for  the  purposes 
in  hand.  The  greater  number  of  them  are  dead,  and  so  is  their 
messenger,  and  so  are  all  the  men  to  whom  he  delivered  his 
message.  The  effect  was  instantaneous,  as  may  be  seen  by  a 
comparison  of  dates.  The  President  obviously  had  but  one 
duty  to  perform,  and  he  performed  it  without  hesitation. 
General  Pope  was  not  formally  removed,  but  he  literally 
drifted  out  of  the  command  as  General  McClellan  drifted  back 
into  it.  The  Army  of  Virginia  quietly  ceased  to  be,  and  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  set  out  at  once  for  the  battle-fields  of 
South  Mountain  and  the  Antietam.  Glad  enough  would 
Mr.  Lincoln  have  been,  and  well  would  it  have  been  for  the 
country,  if  he  could  on  many  another  emergency  have  listened 
to  a  full  and  unreserved  expression  of  the  views  of  men  hold- 
ing corresponding  positions  in  that  and  other  armies ;  but  the 
rules  of  the  service,  and  the  rigid  requirements  of  military 
etiquette,  and  the  impossibility  of  providing  ways  of  access  to 
himself,  were  all  prohibitory. 


324  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

It  was  true,  as  General  Pope  had  reported,  that  the  army  as 
a  whole  was  in  good  heart  and  good  condition.  He  might  well 
feel  personally  hurt  and  injured  that  it  should  so  drift  out  from 
under  him.  General  McClellan  was  again  in  command  from 
and  after  September  2d.  On  the  3d  he  had  in  his  hands  in- 
formation which  convinced  him  of  General  Lee's  intention  to 
cross  the  upper  Potomac  into  Maryland.  It  was  necessary 
that  he  should  move  at  once,  establishing  his  relations  with  the 
forces  under  his  command  while  on  the  march.  This  is  the 
process  commonly  spoken  of  as  his  reorganization  of  the  army. 

The  movement  of  the  Confederate  troops  across  the  Potomac 
began  at  Leesburg  between  the  4th  and  5th  of  September. 
Beyond  all  question  they  and  their  leaders  believed  that  they 
had  come  to  stay.  They  had  exaggerated  ideas  of  the  injuries 
they  had  inflicted  upon  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and  the 
forces  under  Pope.  Still  more  erroneous  was  their  conception 
of  the  state  of  public  opinion  in  Maryland.  Wilder  and  more 
frantic  still  were  their  ideas  of  the  condition  of  affairs  at  the 
North  and  of  the  relations  of  what  they  called  "  the  Lincoln 
despotism"  to  the  masses  of  the  people.  In  one  point  only 
were  they  entirely  correct.  A  series  of  victories  in  Maryland 
over  the  Union  armies  would  undoubtedly  have  converted  their 
dreams  into  something  very  like  realities.  The  stake  was  tre- 
mendous, and  it  was  played  for  with  all  the  boldness  of  exult- 
ing self-confidence,  with  the  full  consciousness  of  courage  and 
ability,  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  fighting  superior  num- 
bers, and  the  expectation  of  beating  them  if  those  superior 
numbers  could  at  all  be  induced  to  face  them  upon  the  field  of 
battle.  It  is  at  least  apparently  true,  also,  that  they  were  mis- 
led as  to  the  whereabouts  of  a  considerable  part  of  their  old 
antagonists  of  the  peninsular  battle-grounds. 

General  McClellan  moved  very  slowly,  but  the  Confederate 
commanders  were  pushing  their  invasion  with  tremendous 
vigor.  On  the  15th  of  September,  without  any  battle  at  all, 
they  captured  the  entire  Union  force  aimlessly  permitted  to 


DEAWN  BATTLES. 

remain  at  Harper's  Ferry,  of  about  11,000  men,  with  73  pieces 
of  artillery  and  with  valuable  material  of  small  arms  and  stores. 
No  military  critic  has  ever  discovered  a  good  excuse  for  this 
blunder,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  could  find  none  at  the  time.  Ac- 
companying the  news  of  the  loss  at  Harper's  Ferry  were  Gen- 
eral McClellan's  reports  of  a  brace  of  severe  engagements  at 
South  Mountain,  commonly  described  as  the  battle  of  that 
name.  About  30,000  Confederates  were  driven  out  of  good 
positions  after  a  hard  fight.  The  nature  of  the  ground  pre- 
vented concentration  of  the  troops  on  either  side  or  the  effec- 
tive use  of  superior  numbers,  but  no  high  degree  of  "  general- 
ship" was  exhibited.  As  usual,  the  Rebels  claimed  a  "  victory," 
but  it  was  not  of  the  kind  it  would  be  necessary  for  them  to 
win  if  they  desired  to  make  a  long  visit  in  Maryland.  It  was 
also  claimed  by  General  McClellan  as  a  victory ;  and  so  it  was, 
for  he  had  not  been  defeated ;  but  it  was  not  what  it  should 
have  been,  and  it  prepared  the  way  for  the  greater  failure  im- 
mediately to  follow. 

The  15th  and  16th  of  September,  after  the  victory  of  South 
Mountain,  did  not  contain  much  pursuing  of  the  vanquished 
enemy,  but  on  the  17th  was  fought  the  really  terrible  battle  of 
the  Antietam  Creek.  It  was  not  at  all  a  well-managed  fight, 
but  it  was  splendidly  contested  by  the  armies  on  either  side. 
The  Union  forces  engaged  had  somewhat  the  advantage  of 
numbers,  as  the  rebels  had  of  position.  The  former  would 
have  had  a  greater  numerical  advantage  if  their  commander 
had  made  a  proper  use  of  them.  That  he  did  not  do  so  enabled 
General  Lee  to  extract  a  "  drawn  battle"  from  the  jaws  of  what 
should  have  been  a  destructive  defeat.  He  was  then  permitted 
to  march  away  into  Virginia  unmolested.  Not  all  the  urgency 
brought  to  bear  upon  General  McClellan  by  Mr.  Lincoln  could 
induce  him  to  interfere  with  the  movements  of  the  enemy  he 
had  so  thoroughly  shattered,  although  he  could  have  done  so 
with  troops  who  had  not  been  under  fire  and  were  fresh. 

The  patience  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  once  more  exhausted  by 


326  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  short  history  of  McClellan's  new  command  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac.  Too  much  had  been  wasted  of  men  and  mate- 
rials and  precious  opportunities.  Too  many  costly  advantages 
had  been  thrown  away,  and  too  many  orders  recklessly  disre- 
garded. The  remaining  days  of  September  and  the  whole  of 
October  were  indeed  consumed  in  unavailing  efforts  to  drive 
him  forward,  while  a  force  of  Rebel  cavalry  under  Stuart 
dashed  across  the  Potomac  and  derisively  rode  all  around  him. 

On  the  26th  of  October  he  began  at  last  to  move  his  army 
across  the  river.  It  was  all  over  by  the  2d  of  November ;  but 
McClellan  was  still  in  doubt  as  to  what  he  should  do  with  it 
afterwards,  and,  on  the  7th  of  November,  he  was  finally  re- 
lieved of  his  command.  General  Ambrose  E.  Burnside  was 
named  as  his  successor. 

It  is  manifest  from  the  record  that  the  latter  general  was 
selected  from  among  a  dozen  officers  of  nearly  equal  fame,  be- 
cause he  was  in  some  respects  the  least  objectionable  and  had 
already  held,  with  good  success,  an  independent  military  com- 
mand in  North  Carolina. 

It  seems  hardly  necessary  to  say,  but  to  some  it  may  be  so, 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  would  not  have  removed  General  McClellan 
for  other  than  strictly  military  reasons.  In  fact,  without  such 
reasons,  clearly  so  marked  out  as  to  be  read  by  all  unprejudiced 
observers,  it  would  not  have  been  politically  safe  to  do  so. 
Even  as  it  was,  the  removal  was  both  politically  dangerous  and 
politically  necessary. 

General  McClellan  was  already  the  representative  of  pro- 
slavery  Unionism  at  the  North,  and  of  all  the  forms  of  discon- 
tent which  were  willing  to  co-operate  with  it.  His  mistakes 
were  his  own.  If  he  had  obeyed  Mr.  Lincoln's  urgency  and 
consented  to  win  a  few  more  victories,  or  had  made  good  use 
of  such  as  were  forced  upon  him,  he  could  not  have  been  set 
aside  without  assuring  him  an  overwhelming  triumph  at  the 
following  Presidential  election.  Had  he  been  left  in  com- 
mand, there  is  reason  to  doubt  if  the  course  of  events  would 


DEA  WN  BA  TTLE8.  327 

not  have  been  such  that  the  destruction  of  slavery  for  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  preparing  would  have  been  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

There  is  a  sense,  not  hard  to  find,  in  which  the  removal  of 
General  McClellan  is  a  part  of  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipa- 
tion which  followed  later.  All  antislavery  men  understood  it 
as  a  telling  blow  at  their  political  opponents,  as  well  as  a  thing 
done  for  the  good  of  the  army  and  of  the  Union  cause.  It  sent 
a  shock  even  through  the  minds  of  Southern  leaders,  for  they 
well  understood  the  divisions  of  public  sentiment  at  the  North. 
They  were  by  no  means  as  blind  as  were  their  followers  to  the 
swift  changes  of  opinion  concerning  them  and  their  cherished 
institution.  They  knew  what  this  meant,  and  it  was  as  if  they 
had  lost  a  battle. 

It  may  almost  be  said  that  General  McClellan  deserved  the 
thanks  of  his  country  for  giving  the  President  good  military 
reasons  for  making  a  removal  so  eminently  desirable  politi- 
cally. 

At  the  North,  at  the  time,  multitudes  received  the  news 
with  a  storm  of  angry  execrations.  As  they  understood  the 
matter,  a  great  general  unjustly  put  aside  had  generously  come 
to  the  rescue  at  a  critical  moment.  He  had  rallied  and  re- 
organized a  ruined  army,  and  with  it  had  won  tremendous  vic- 
tories, and  had  delivered  his  country  from  invasion  if  not  from 
conquest.  It  is  for  many  to  this  day  impossible  to  grasp  the 
situation  as  it  was,  or  to  regard  such  a  setting  forth  as  has  been 
made  above  as  other  than  grossly  partisan.  They  cannot  be 
made  to  believe  that  at  the  battle  of  the  Antietam  McClellan 
had  at  his  disposal  at  least  twice  as  many  men  as  had  Lee,  all 
every  inch  as  good  soldiers  as  his,  as  well  equipped,  as  full  of 
fight  and  enthusiasm,  and  that  yet  Lee  actually  fought  with 
about  equal  numbers,  the  rest  of  McClellan's  army  not  fighting 
at  all.  They  are  blind  to  the  simple  facts  of  the  drawn  battle, 
and  the  unhindered  escape,  and  the  non-employment  of  forces 
in  hand. 


328  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

EMANCIPATION. 

The  War-Power  and  the  Constitution. — A  Struggle  of  Life  and  Death — • 
The  Hour  and  the  Man — The  Proclamation — Waiting  for  a  Victory — 
An  Unprepared  People — Suspension  of  the  Writ  of  Habeas  Corpus — 
Visiting  the  Army — The  Reply  of  the  Opposition. 

IT  is  necessary  at  this  point  to  recall  with  care  the  record 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  life-long  enemy  of  human  slavery,  and  to 
understand  fully  the  position  he  was  forced  to  occupy  regard- 
ing it. 

In  the  year  1850  he  said  to  his  friend  Mr.  Stuart :  "  The 
time  will  come  when  we  must  all  be  Democrats  or  Abolition- 
ists. When  that  time  comes,  my  mind  is  made  up."  In  his 
great  speech  at  Bloomington,  Illinois  in  1858,  he  said :  "  I 
believe  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently,  half  slave 
and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved, — I 
do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall, — but  I  do  expect  it  will  cease 
to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other." 

In  the  private  conversation,  as  in  the  public  utterance,  he 
clearly  expressed  a  conviction  which  had  become  a  part  of  his 
lif e.  That  conviction  could  not  have  been  taken  from  him  by 
any  possible  course  of  events  or  power  of  argument.  From 
the  date  of  the  Bloomington  speech,  and  from  hour  to  hour, 
the  course  of  events  did  but  deepen  as  they  justified  the  sure 
processes  of  his  reason  and  their  unchanged  conclusion. 

Before  the  war  began,  he  saw,  as  did  many  other  men,  that 
a  success  of  the  secession  conspiracy  and  a  division  of  the  na- 
tional territory  meant  more  than  the  triumph  and  permanence 
of  human  slavery  in  the  Southern  Confederacy.  It  meant  also 


EMANCIPATION.  329 

a  perpetual  predominance  of  proslavery  influence  in  the  nomi- 
nally Free  North.  That  influence  was  already  so  strong  there 
as  to  threaten  the  stability  of  an  openly  Abolition  Administra- 
tion. Its  power  was  made  to  be  felt  even  in  strictly  military 
matters  from  the  beginning.  Mr.  Lincoln  found  it  grappling 
with  him  for  the  mastery  and  assailing  him  in  every  imagina- 
ble disguise. 

The  fact  grew  plainer  to  the  minds  of  all  men,  as  the  strife 
went  on,  that  the  institution  of  slavery  was  the  real  prize  for 
which  the  armies  were  contending.  Still,  time  was  required 
to  so  fix  and  confirm  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  great  majority 
that  they  could  endure  to  have  their  secret  convictions  formu- 
lated and  proclaimed. 

Mr.  Lincoln  understood  the  people  very  well.  He  was  a 
sort  of  revolutionary  dictator.  He  was  ready  and  willing  to 
use  all  powers  given  him  by  his  unwritten  commission  to 
"  See  to  it  that  the  Commonwealth  suffers  no  harm."  He  was 
also  a  Constitutional  President,  under  an  oath  to  protect  the 
rights  of  all  citizens  of  every  part  of  the  country.  If  he  were 
not  President  of  the  South,  he  had  no  right  to  send  troops 
there,  to  restore  order  and  enforce  his  authority.  The  people 
of  the  seceded  States  were  still  his  fellow-citizens,  or  it  would 
have  been  idle  to  call  them  "  rebels."  Against  them  he  cher- 
ished no  atom  of  merely  personal  animosity,  and  he  was  desti- 
tute of  mere  sectional  prejudices.  His  course  cannot  be  at  all 
understood  by  any  man  who  narrowly  imagines  him  as  think- 
ing only  of  his  duties  to  the  populations  within  the  Union 
army  lines. 

In  his  inaugural  address,  he  said :  "  I  have  no  purpose, 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  interfere  with  the  institution  of 
slavery  in  the  States  where  it  exists.  I  believe  I  have  no  law- 
ful right  to  do  so,  and  I  have  no  inclination  to  do  so."  And, 
speaking  as  if  to  the  people  of  the  South :  "  You  can  have  no 
conflict  without  being  yourselves  the  aggressors :  we  are  not 
enemies,  but  friends." 


330  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

They  insisted  on  becoming  his  enemies ;  but  he  continued  to 
be  their  friend  to  the  end,  even  while  resisting  to  the  utter- 
most the  aggressors  who  demanded  and  compelled  conflict 
when  he  pleaded  for  peace. 

No  change  of  any  consequence  was  made,  or  could  be  made, 
constitutionally,  in  the  written  law  of  the  land  respecting 
slavery.  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  underwent  no  change  as  to  his 
view  of  his  "  lawful  right"  thence  derived.  Any  such  right 
must  therefore  come  to  him  in  another  way ;  but  he  steadily 
and  thoughtfully  prepared  himself  to  exercise  it  in  the  hour  of 
its  coming. 

At  the  time  of  Fremont's  premature  "  proclamation"  no  law 
or  lawful  right  had  as  yet  been  created.  The  power  to  set 
aside  written  law  was  inherent  in  the  "  dictatorship,"  but  could 
come  even  to  the  dictator  only  from  the  hand  of  necessity  and 
for  the  safety  of  the  life  of  the  Commonwealth.  It  was  not 
personal  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  or,  through  or  without  him,  to  any  of 
his  subordinate  officers. 

That  slavery  must  die  or  that  the  Commonwealth  must  die 
became  gradually  but  more  and  more  plainly  manifest.  It  was 
also  plain  that  the  death  of  the  public  enemy  must  be  by  the 
hands  of  the  war  power  and  as  a  military  execution,  without 
waiting  for  the  slow  and  doubtful  processes  of  civil  procedure. 
The  remaining  questions  related  only  to  the  time  and  manner  of 
an  act  so  important.  On  the  13th  of  March  and  on  the  16th  of 
July,  1862,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  approved  and  signed  Acts  of 
Congress  the  effect  of  which  was  to  give  due  form  of  law  to 
General  B.  F.  Butler's  doctrine  that  all  slaves  of  rebels  in  arms 
were  "  contraband  of  war."  These  Acts,  with  a  little  help, 
would  have  proved  fatal  to  the  institution  in  due  time ;  but 
they  dealt  with  individuals  and  not  with  geographical  areas  or 
entire  communities,  and  were  subject  to  Congressional  action 
in  repeal  or  modification.  They  did  much  towards  preparing 
the  way  for  better  things,  however,  and  the  President  wisely 
embodied  them  in  his  first  proclamation.  He  thereby  absorbed 


EMANCIPATION.  331 

in  and  united  with  his  own  action  as  Dictator  and  President 
the  previous  action  of  the  legislative  branch  of  the  government. 
Members  of  Congress  were  enabled  to  say  to  each  other,  "  The 
Commander-in-Chief  has  issued  a  general  order  embodying  and 
enforcing  our  legislation." 

The  "  general  order"  contained  and  enforced  such  amplifica- 
tions as  rendered  the  Dictatorial  Proclamation  forever  inde- 
pendent of  the  Legislative  Act. 

That  the  view  here  taken  may  not  be  deemed  strained  or 
overwrought,  it  is  best  to  condense  it  into  Mr.  Lincoln's  own 
words.  In  a  letter  dated  April  4,  1864,  written  to  Mr.  George 
C.  Hodges,  of  Frankfort,  Kentucky,  he  says : 

"  I  felt  that  measures  otherwise  unconstitutional  might  be- 
come lawful  by  becoming  indispensable  to  the  preservation  of 
the  Constitution,  through  the  preservation  of  the  Nation. 
When,  early  in  the  war,  General  Fremont  attempted  military 
emancipation,  I  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not  then  think  it  an 
indispensable  necessity.  When,  a  little  later,  General  Cameron, 
then  Secretary  of  War,  suggested  the  arming  of  the  blacks,  I 
objected,  because  I  did  not  yet  think  the  indispensable  neces- 
sity had  come." 

Through  these  few  sentences  the  whole  course  of  his  mental 
operations  may  be  unerringly  traced. 

The  hour  he  waited  for  came  at  last,  and  his  action  came 
with  it.  The  deed  itself,  and  all  the  manner  of  its  doing,  bring 
out  in  striking  illustration  the  inner  life  of  the  man.  It  sets 
forth  once  more  his  lifelong  characteristic  of  foresight  and 
previous  preparation,  that  so  delivered  him  from  ruinous  sur- 
prises. Even  as  he  had  patiently  waited  for  the  Rebellion, 
knowing  that  it  would  surely  come,  so  he  now  waited  for  the 
hour  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  with  faith  in  God 
that  it  also  would  come. 

In  the  summer  of  1862  he  prepared  a  draft  of  the  impor- 
tant document.  At  about  the  last  of  July  or  the  first  of  Au- 
gust he  called  a  full  meeting  of  his  Cabinet.  The  members 


332  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  it  had  no  information  of  the  reason  of  their  coming  together, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln  seemed  in  no  hurry  to  give  them  any.  They 
were  eminently  representative  men,  and  he  knew  that  by  the 
effect  upon  them  of  the  paper  he  was  about  to  read  to  them  he 
could  fairly  judge  its  probable  effect  upon  the  nation.  He 
was  not  yet  prepared,  mentally,  for  the  struggle  before  him. 
He  even  trifled  for  a  few  minutes,  internally  steadying  his  own 
powers  and  gauging  the  status  of  the  sober  statesmen  around 
him.  He  read  to  them  a  chapter  of  a  book  by  "  Orpheus  C. 
Kerr,"  and  heartily  laughed  at  its  drolleries.  No  man  among 
them  was  aware  of,  or  could  penetrate,  the  depths  of  thought 
and  emotion,  or  discern  the  gathering  strength  of  will,  behind 
that  laugh.  The  seemingly  frivolous  delay  had  unseen  uses  ; 
but  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  looked  at  one  another  with  a 
growing  sense  that  their  personal  dignity  was  in  peril.  All 
cause  for  such  nervousness  disappeared  when  that  of  the  Presi- 
dent himself  had  been  removed  and  he  had  adjusted  himself 
to  his  task. 

His  demeanor  suddenly  underwent  a  change.  The  amused 
humorist  vanished.  In  his  place  was  a  man  who  had  reached 
a  new  grandeur  of  moral  elevation  to  which  he  was  pro- 
foundly anxious  to  raise  each  soul  among  them.  He  announced 
his  purpose  and  read  the  paper  which  he  had  prepared.  He 
stated,  in  good  set  terms,  that  he  had  not  called  them  together 
to  ask  their  advice,  but  to  lay  the  subject-matter  of  a  procla- 
mation before  them,  suggestions  as  to  which  would  be  in  order 
after  they  had  heard  it  read.  It  was  not  so  much  for  general 
consultation,  therefore,  as  to  finally  announce  a  settled  purpose 
and  to  receive  counsel  on  minor  points. 

There  is  no  accurate  report  of  the  debate  which  followed, 
but  the  scene  itself  is  pictorially  presented,  with  an  extreme  of 
careful  exactness,  in  the  painting  by  Mr.  F.  B.  Carpenter,  pre- 
served in  the  Capitol  at  Washington.  Mr.  Chase,  it  is  said, 
wished  the  language  made  stronger  with  reference  to  the  arm- 
ing of  the  blacks,  not  perceiving  that  the  emergency  was  al- 


EMANCIPATION.  333 

ready  loaded  to  the  very  limits  of  its  power  to  endure.  Mr. 
Blair  opposed  the  proclamation  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
cost  the  Administration  the  fall  elections,  not  seeing  that  the 
gift  of  freedom  to  the  slave  opened  a  perpetual  fountain  of 
popular  support.  Other  remarks  were  made ;  but  little  seems 
to  have  been  effectively  said  until  Mr.  Seward  spoke,  as  a 
statesman  comprehending  the  effect  of  a  measure  so  fully  in 
accord  with  the  tenor  of  his  own  life  and  work : 

"  Mr.  President,  I  approve  of  the  proclamation,  but  I  ques- 
tion the  expediency  of  its  issue  at  this  juncture.  The  depres- 
sion of  the  public  mind,  consequent  upon  our  repeated  reverses, 
is  so  great  that  I  fear  the  effect  of  so  important  a  step.  It  may 
be  viewed  as  the  last  measure  of  an  exhausted  government — a 
cry  for  help — the  government  stretching  out  its  hands  to  Ethi- 
opia, instead  of  Ethiopia  stretching  out  its  hands  to  the  gov- 
ernment." (Mr.  Carpenter  relates  that  Mr.  Lincoln  himself 
said,  "  His  idea  was  that  it  would  be  considered  our  last  shriek 
on  the  retreat.")  Mr.  Seward  added  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  pub- 
lication of  the  proclamation  should  be  delayed  until  it  could  fol- 
low some  notable  military  success.  The  advice  of  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  was  undeniably  sound,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  followed 
it.  Quite  likely  the  precise  idea  expressed  by  Mr.  Seward  was 
already  in  his  mind. 

The  Army  of  Virginia,  under  Pope,  was  at  that  time  con- 
fronting the  Rebels  under  Lee.  A  victory  sufficient  for  the 
purpose  might  come  any  day.  The  President  patiently  waited 
for  one ;  but  none  came.  The  dark  days  of  August  closed  with 
the  Second  Bull  Eun  and  Chantilly.  Then  McClellan  was 
once  more  in  command,  but  he  was  no  emancipationist. 

The  condition  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind,  during  those  terrible 
days  of  enforced  waiting,  may  be  learned  from  his  subsequent 
action  and  from  his  own  account.  He  stated  to  Mr.  F.  B. 
Carpenter,  the  artist  of  the  picture  of  the  "  First  Reading :" 

"  When  Lee  came  over  the  river,  I  made  a  resolve  that  when 
McClellan  should  drive  him  back, — and  I  expected  he  would 


334  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

do  it,  some  time  or  other, — I  would  send  the  proclamation 
after  him.  I  worked  upon  it  and  got  it  pretty  much  prepared. 
The  battle  of  Antietam  was  fought  on  Wednesday,  but  I  could 
not  find  out  till  Saturday  whether  we  had  really  won  a  victory 
or  not.  It  was  too  late  to  issue  the  proclamation  that  week, 
and  I  dressed  it  over  a  little,  on  Sunday  and  on  Monday  I 
gave  it  to  them.  The  fact  is,  I  never  thought  of  the  meeting 
of  the  governors  at  Altoona,  and  I  can  hardly  remember  that 
I  knew  anything  about  it." 

The  latter  clause  refers  to  a  conference  of  the  "War  Gov- 
ernors, as  they  were  called,  of  several  of  the  free  States,  to  con- 
fer as  to  the  condition  of  public  affairs,  which  by  some  had 
been  supposed  to  have  influenced  the  action  of  the  President. 

A  Cabinet  meeting  was  held  on  the  Saturday  following  the 
battle  of  the  Antietam.  There  had  been  no  great  victory,  in 
one  sense ;  but  there  had  in  another,  for  the  army  under  Lee 
was  defeated  by  its  hard-earned  "  drawn  battle"  so  completely 
that  its  campaign  of  invasion  was  ended  and  it  had  leisurely 
recrossed  the  Potomac. 

The  members  of  the  Cabinet  were  summoned,  as  before,  not 
to  give  advice  but  to  hear  a  decision.  Mr.  Lincoln  told  them 
that  the  time  for  delay  or  hesitation  had  gone  by,  and  that 
Emancipation  must  now  be  made  the  declared  policy  of  the 
Administration.  Public  sentiment  would  now  sustain  it.  A 
strong  and  outspoken  popular  voice  openly  demanded  it,  and 
the  demand  came  from  the  best  friends  of  the  government. 

That  was  not  all.  In  a  low  voice,  and  reverently,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln added :  "  And  I  have  promised  my  God  that  I  will  do  it." 

Mr,  Chase,  who  sat  nearest  him,  heard  but  indistinctly  the 
low-voiced  utterance,  and  inquired : 

"  Did  I  understand  you  correctly,  Mr.  President  ? " 

Mr.  Lincoln  replied : 

"  I  made  a  solemn  vow,  before  God,  that,  if  General  Lee 
should  be  driven  back  from  Pennsylvania,  I  would  crown  the 
result  by  the  declaration  of  freedom  to  the  slaves." 


EMANCIPATION.  335 

The  proclamation  was  issued  on  Monday,  September  22, 
1862,  and  was  as  follows : 

"  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the  United  States  of 
America,  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy 
thereof,  do  hereby  proclaim  and  declare  that  hereafter,  as  here- 
tofore, the  war  will  be  prosecuted  for  the  object  of  practically 
restoring  the  constitutional  relation  between  the  United  States 
and  each  of  the  States,  and  the  people  thereof,  in  which  States 
that  relation  is  or  may  be  suspended  or  disturbed. 

"  That  it  is  my  purpose,  upon  the  next  meeting  of  Congress, 
to  again  recommend  the  adoption  of  a  practical  measure  ten- 
dering pecuniary  aid  to  the  free  acceptance  or  rejection  of  all 
slave-States,  so  called,  the  people  whereof  may  not  then  be  in 
rebellion  against  the  United  States,  and  which  States  may  then 
have  voluntarily  adopted,  or  thereafter  may  voluntarily  adopt, 
immediate  or  gradual  abolishment  of  slavery  within  their  re- 
spective limits ;  and  that  the  effort  to  colonize  persons  of  Afri- 
can descent,  with  their  consent,  upon  this  continent  or  else- 
where, with  the  previously  obtained  consent  of  the  govern- 
ments existing  there,  will  be  continued. 

"  That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as 
slaves  within  any  State  or  designated  part  of  a  State,  the  peo- 
ple whereof  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
shall  be  then,  thenceforward  and  forever,  free ;  and  the  Execu- 
tive Government  of  the  United  States,  including  the  military 
and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the 
freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress 
such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for 
their  actual  freedom. 

"  That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  afore- 
said, by  proclamation,  designate  the  States  and  parts  of  States, 
if  any,  in  which  the  people  thereof  respectively  shall  then  be 
in  rebellion  against  the  United  States  ;  and  the  fact  that  any 
State,  or  the  people  thereof,  shall  on  that  day  be  in  good  faith 


336  ABRAHAM 

represented  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  by  members 
chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a  majority  of  the  qualified 
voters  of  such  State  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  strong  countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive 
evidence  that  such  State,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  then 
in  rebellion  against  the  United  States. 

"  That  attention  is  hereby  called  to  an  Act  of  Congress,  en- 
titled '  An  Act  to  make  an  additional  Article  of  "War,'  approved 
March  13,  1862,  and  which  Act  is  in  the  words  and  figures 
following : 

" '  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives 
of  the  United  States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled,  That 
hereafter  the  following  shall  be  promulgated  as  an  additional 
article  of  war,  for  the  government  of  the  army  of  the  United 
States,  and  shall  be  obeyed  and  observed  as  such  : 

" '  Article — All  officers  or  persons  in  the  military  or  naval 
service  of  the  United  States  are  prohibited  from  employing 
any  of  the  forces  under  their  respective  commands  for  the  pur- 
pose of  returning  fugitives  from  service  or  labor  who  may 
have  escaped  from  any  persons  to  whom  service  or  labor  is. 
claimed  to  be  due ;  and  any  officer  who  shall  be  found  guilty 
by  a  court-martial  of  violating  this  article  shall  be  dismissed 
from  the  service. 

" '  Sec.  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  this  Act  shall  take 
effect  from  and  after  its  passage.' 

"  Also  to  the  ninth  and  tenth  sections  of  an  Act  entitled '  An 
Act  to  suppress  insurrection,  to  punish  treason  and  rebellion,, 
to  seize  and  confiscate  property  of  rebels,  and  for  other  pur- 
poses,' approved  July  16,  1862,  and  which  sections  are  in  the 
words  and  figures  following :  .. 

"  *  Section  9.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  all  slaves  of  all 
persons  who  shall  hereafter  be  engaged  in  rebellion  against  the 
government  of  the  United  States,  or  who  shall  in  any  way  give 
aid  or  comfort  thereto,  escaping  from  such  persons  and  taking 
refuge  within  the  lines  of  the  army  ;  and  all  slaves  captured 


EMANCIPATION.  337 

from  such  persons,  or  deserted  by  them,  and  coming  under  the 
control  of  the  government  of  the  United  States,  and  all  slaves 
of  such  persons  found  on  [or]  being  within  any  place  occupied 
by  rebel  forces,  and  afterwards  occupied  by  the  forces  of  the 
United  States,  shall  be  deemed  captives  of  war,  and  shall  be 
forever  free  of  their  servitude  and  not  again  held  as  slaves. 

" '  Section  10.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  no  slave  es- 
caping into  any  State,  Territory,  or  the  District  of  Columbia, 
from  any  other  State,  shall  be  delivered  up,  or  in  any  way  im- 
peded or  hindered  of  his  liberty,  except  for  crime,  or  some  of- 
fense against  the  laws,  unless  the  person  claiming  said  fugitive 
shall  first  make  oath  that  the  person  to  whom  the  labor  or 
service  is  alleged  to  be  due  is  his  lawful  owner,  and  has  not 
borne  arms  against  the  United  States  in  the  present  rebellion, 
nor  in  any  way  given  aid  and  comfort  thereto ;  and  no  person 
engaged  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  United  States 
shall,  under  any  pretense  whatever,  assume  to  decide  on  the 
validity  of  the  claim  of  any  person  to  the  service  or  labor  of 
any  other  person,  or  surrender  up  any  such  person  to  the 
claimant,  on  pain  of  being  dismissed  from  the  service.' 

"  And  I  do  hereby  enjoin  upon  and  order  all  persons  en- 
gaged in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the  United  States  to 
observe,  obey,  and  enforce,  within  their  respective  spheres  of 
service,  the  Act  and  sections  above  recited. 

"  And  the  Executive  will  in  due  time  recommend  that  all 
citizens  of  the  United  States  who  shall  have  remained  loyal 
thereto  throughout  the  rebellion  shall  (upon  the  restoration  of 
the  constitutional  relation  between  the  United  States  and  their 
respective  States  and  people,  if  that  relation  shall  have  been 
suspended  or  disturbed)  be  compensated  for  all  losses  by  acts 
of  the  United  States,  including  the  loss  of  slaves. 

"In  witness  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand  and 
caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

"  Done  at  the  city  of  Washington,  this  twenty-second  day  of 
September,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred 


338  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

and  sixty-two,  and  of  the  independence  of  the  United  States 
the  eighty-seventh. 

[L.  s.]  "  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  By  the  President : 

"  WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State."          , 

It  was  true  that  a  day  in  the  future  was  named  as  the  date 
npon  which  the  Executive  axe  would  fall,  but  all  men  knew 
that  it  was  as  if  the  intervening  time  were  already  past  and 
that  the  act  of  emancipation  was  final.  Neither  retraction  nor 
modification  was  among  the  possibilities  of  the  future. 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  the  antislavery  elements  of  the 
people  should  welcome  with  enthusiasm  so  bold  and  deadly  a 
stroke  at  the  abomination  they  hated.  They  would  surely  be 
glad  to  see  the  future  course  of  the  Administration  determined, 
and  they  would  accept  the  results  as  accomplished,  for  they 
were  generally  men  of  faith. 

Not  all,  indeed ;  for  a  shiver  of  dread  and  doubt  swept  over 
.a  large  mass  of  them,  and  made  itself  audible  in  foreboding 
mutters  and  dark  prophecies. 

It  was  even  more  a  matter  of  course  that  the  conservative  ele- 
ments would  withhold  their  open  approval  until  the  course  of 
events  should  justify  the  act.  They  would  require  time  to  re- 
cover from  the  shock  of  a  new  idea  and  to  accustom  their  vision 
to  the  glare  of  a  new  light. 

There  were  others  to  be  considered  in  an  emergency  so  tre- 
mendous. Mr.  Lincoln  well  knew  that  the  proslavery  and  all 
other  anti-Administration  politicians  at  the  North  would  in- 
stantly be  stirred  to  a  white  heat  of  activity.  The  fall  elec- 
tions were  near,  and  he  had  before  him  a  struggle  on  behalf  of 
the  Nation.  It  was  not  well  to  confess  openly  that  it  was  a 
struggle  of  life  and  death.  The  men  with  whom  he  was  to 
contend  were  every  way  as  dangerous  as  the  armies  under  Lee 
with  which  they  were  co-operating.  But  for  them,  indeed,  and 
hope  and  aid  and  comfort  from  them,  the  armies  under  Lee 


EMANCIPATION.  339 

could  never  have  been  gathered  in  the  first  place,  nor  so  long 
have  been  held  together.  The  main  confidence  of  the  Con- 
federacy, at  the  outset,  had  been  in  a  divided  North.  So  it  re- 
mained, in  greater  or  less  degree,  until  near  the  end ;  and  the 
fact  is  recorded  in  the  very  localities  of  the  battle-fields  of  the 
Antietam  and  Gettysburg. 

Knowing  how  all  the  detrimental  activities  of  Northern 
treason  would  be  stimulated  by  the  declared  and  open  "  Aboli- 
tionism" of  the  Administration,  it  was  needful  for  the  latter  to 
put  into  the  hands  of  its  supporters  a  new  and  powerful  weapon, 
for  prompt  use  wherever  needed.  The  foe  in  the  rear,  as  well 
as  the  foe  in  front,  must  be  made  to  feel  the  strong  grip  of  the 
War  power. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  prepared  yet  another  proclamation,  of  tem- 
porary effect,  but  that  sounded  sternly  supplementary  of  the 
first.  It  was  a  proclamation  "  suspending  the  Writ  of  Habeas 
Corpus"  in  all  cases  of  persons  arrested,  confined,  or  sentenced 
by  court-martial,  as  accused  or  convicted  of  certain  specified 
classes  of  offenses,  all  of  which  might  be  included  under  the 
general  head  of  "  giving  aid  and  comfort  to  the  insurrection." 
Nominally  based  upon  a  clause  of  the  written  Constitution,  it 
went  so  far  beyond  the  provisions  of  that  clause  that,  in  the 
opinion  of  many  lawyers,  it  gave  good  reason  for  the  storm  of 
fierce  denunciation  with  which  it  was  received.  Not  the  Pro- 
clamation of  Emancipation  itself  was  made  the  text  of  so  many 
angry  speeches  and  editorials.  The  speakers  loudly  declared 
that  "  freedom  of  speech  is  destroyed,"  and  the  writers  that 
"  the  liberty  of  the  press  is  taken  away."  It  was  not  so  easy 
to  convince  the  hearers  or  readers  of  these  philippics  that  the 
"  Despot  at  Washington"  had  actually  done  the  deed,  as  yet. 
That  part  of  the  storm  blew  itself  over  until  the  following 
winter.  It  then  broke  out  again  in  Congress,  and  there  it  ex- 
hausted itself  in  speeches  and  resolutions  of  a  nature  which 
profitably  compelled  that  body  to  sustain  Mr.  Lincoln's  course 
most  thoroughly,  by  enacting  the  necessary  and  customary 


340  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

laws  in  such  cases.  Congress  always  caught  up  with  him 
before  the  end  of  a  session.  It  was  yet  to  be  discovered  how 
well  he  was  then  providing  for  future  emergencies,  and  how 
very  needful  it  was  that  the  required  provision  should  be  made 
a  good  while  beforehand. 

All  this  was  attended  to.  But  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  matter 
of  especial  statesmanship  very  close  at  hand.  If  General 
McClellan  had  striven  to  impress  upon  him  one  thing  more 
than  another,  it  had  been  the  politically  conservative  opinions 
of  the  commissioned  and  non-commissioned  officers  and  rank 
and  file  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  He  had  told  the  Presi- 
dent, in  about  so  many  words,  that  they  could  not  be  relied 
upon  or  held  together  for  an  "  Abolition  war." 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  believe  this  setting  forth  implicitly,  for 
a  great  part  of  that  army  consisted  of  men  who  had  voted  for 
him  in  1860.  They  surely  had  not  changed  their  opinions 
greatly  under  the  influences  of  the  camp  and  battle-field. 

Still  it  was  a  matter  to  be  looked  into,  especially  as  ominous 
reports  came  rapidly  in  concerning  the  tone  of  talk  at  many 
representative  "  mess-tables." 

The  President  was  detained  in  Washington  for  a  week  or  so 
by  his  other  duties ;  but  by  the  first  week  of  October  he  was 
with  the  army,  on  a  long  and  very  sociable  visit.  The  victori- 
ous troops  were  "resting,"  under  McClellan's  care,  from  the 
fatigues  of  the  Antietam  campaign ;  while  Lee's  defeated  army, 
not  needing  so  much  rest,  was  busily  carrying  on  the  war. 

For  several  days  Mr.  Lincoln  went  about  among  them, 
freely  mingling  and  conversing  with  officers  and  men.  Every- 
where he  was  received  with  enthusiasm,  and  often  with  tokens 
of  strong  affection.  At  no  point  or  place  or  in  any  part  of  any 
command  could  he  detect  perceptible  signs  of  disaffection. 
Such  moderate  ebullitions  of  prejudices  as  were  now  mere 
"political  reminiscences"  had  pretty  nearly  subsided  by  the 
end  of  that  week.  Had  the  talk  among  the  true-hearted  sol- 
diers, around  their  camp;fires,  been  even  louder  than  it  was, 


EMANCIPATION.  341 

the  President's  visit  would  have  sufficed  to  restore  a  better 
state  of  mind. 

All  political  and  other  perils  were  freely  discussed  by  Mr. 
Lincoln  with  McClellan  himself,  and  very  effectively.  On  the 
6th  of  October  the  former  returned  to  "Washington.  On  the 
very  next  day  the  latter  issued  a  "  general  order"  reminding 
the  officers  and  men  of  his  command  of  their  duty  to  the  civil 
authorities.  It  was  also,  in  effect,  a  sharp  suggestion  and  re- 
minder that  they  were  dissatisfied  with  the  political  attitude  of 
the  government  which  they  were  defending.  The  great  ma- 
jority would  never  have  known  it  if  they  had  not  been  told, 
and  doubted  it  even  then.  He  said : 

"  Discussion  by  officers  and  soldiers  concerning  public  meas 
ures  determined  upon  and  declared  by  the  government,  when 
carried  beyond  the  ordinary  temperate  and  respectful  expres- 
sion of  opinion,  tends  greatly  to  impair  and  destroy  the  dis- 
cipline and  efficiency  of  the  troops  by  substituting  the  spirit  of 
political  faction  for  the  firm,  steady,  and  earnest  support  of  the 
authority  of  the  government,  which  is  the  highest  duty  of  the 
American  soldier." 

It  was  admirable.  It  was  the  precise  form  of  words  and 
sound  doctrine  he  should  have  meditated  upon  before  penning 
some  of  his  own  dispatches  to  the  President.  It  sounded  well 
now ;  but  the  army  and  nation  somehow  perversely  paraphrased 
it  so  that  it  did  him  no  good.  They  made  it  read :  "  Fellow- 
soldiers,  you  and  I  are  of  one  mind  in  this  matter.  You  con- 
demn this  accursed  Abolition  policy  as  bitterly  as  I  do ;  but  it 
is  our  duty  to  say  no  more  about  it  than  we  can  help,  just  now. 
We  must  keep  our  opinions  to  ourselves." 

There  was  no  open  fault  to  be  found  with  such  a  "  general 
order,"  but  it  was  really  a  species  of  dull  reply  to  the  Emanci- 
pation Proclamation  and  the  Suspension  of  the  Writ  of  Habeas 
Corpus,  issued  by  the  military  representative  of  the  Opposi- 
tion. 

The  disloyal  elements  in  the  army  were  so  small  that  the 


342  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

dismissal  of  one  or  two  subordinate  officers  who  indulged  in 
mutinous  talk  furnished  an  ample  corrective.  In  fact,  it  now 
began  to  dawn  upon  the  minds  even  of  politicians  that  an  army 
is  a  great  machine,  and  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  done  nothing  at 
all  to  loosen  his  strong  grasp  of  the  controlling  mechanism  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

That  of  General  McClellan  had  been  loosened  materially,  and 
a  few  weeks  later  it  was  severed  altogether  and  forever.  Not 
even  the  soldiers  themselves  were  then  aware,  at  first,  how 
much  more  close  and  personal  thenceforward  would  be  their 
relations  to  the  one  man  whom  nobody  could  remove  or  trans- 
fer, and  under  whom  they  served  continuously,  no  matter  what 
subordinate  officer  of  his  selection  might  for  the  time  intervene. 


THE  HARDEST  BLOW.  343 


CHAPTEK  XLII. 

THE     HARDEST     BLOW. 

Home-Life  in  the  White  House — Death  of  Little  Willie — Proclamation  of 
Thanksgiving  and  Prayer — Circular  Letter  to  the  Army  on  Sabbath 
Keeping — Spiritual  Growth. 

THE  year  1862  was  a  period  of  rapid  growth  for  Abraham 
Lincoln.  It  was  a  cup  filled  to  overflowing  with  trials  of  every 
kind  and  nature. 

He  was  calling  upon  all  the  families  in  the  land  to  send 
their  sons  to  die  upon  the  many  battle-fields  of  the  war,  and 
the  responsibility  of  that  sacred  but  awful  duty  weighed  heavily 
upon  him.  He  was  in  the  kind  of  furnace  whose  fires  either 
harden  a  man  or  burn  away  the  dross  from  the  better  metal  of 
his  composition.  It  is  well  to  study  the  process,  somewhat,  in 
order  to  obtain  a  clearer  perception  of  the  result. 

There  could  be  but  little  of  home  life  at  the  White  House. 
It  was  the  business  centre  of  a  vast  and  growing  web  of  civil 
and  military  offices  and  operations.  Nevertheless,  it  was  all 
the  home  the  President  could  have.  His  wife  presided  over 
the  few  apartments  reserved  for  family  uses  and  hospitalities. 
There  were  social  features  attached  to  the  duties  of  the  Execu- 
tive, but  these,  for  the  greater  part,  assumed  a  public  and  offi- 
cial character. 

Nearly  to  the  end  of  the  first  year  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  term, 
there  had  been  one  brightness  in  and  about  the  rooms  and 
offices  which  at  times  gave  them  almost  a  home-like  look,  for 
his  two  younger  boys  came  and  went,  through  all  of  them,  at 
their  own  childish  will.  The  elder  of  these  children,  Willie, 
was  a  peculiarly  promising  boy,  and  Thomas,  or  "Tad," 


344  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  younger,  was  full  of  merry  mischief,  the  ludicrous 
effect  of  which  was  in  no  wise  lessened  by  the  impediment  in 
his  speech  whenever  he  was  called  to  an  account.  That  was 
not  very  often,  indeed,  nor  a  very  serious  matter  for  him  or 
his  brother.  Tad  could  explore  the  garret,  discovering  the 
place  where  all  the  bell-wires  in  the  house  were  attached  to  a 
central  pinion,  and  could  set  all  bells,  and  all  human  answerers 
of  bells,  in  futile  motion.  Willie  could  slit  into  ribbons  the 
cloth  covering  of  the  private  secretary's  table.  Both  or  either 
could  come  and  stand  by  their  father's  knee,  at  times,  when 
grave  statesmen  and  pompous  generals  were  presenting  to  him 
matters  of  national  or  world-wide  importance.  Such  rebukes 
as  might  occasionally  be  administered  to  them  savored  very 
little  of  "  army  discipline."  They  were  of  more  value  to  their 
father  and  to  his  work  than  anybody  knew,  even  then.  But 
they  were  to  render  a  greater  and  a  higher  service. 

In  February,  1862,  while  Mr.  Lincoln  was  straining  every 
nerve  to  obtain  from  General  McClellan  the  forward  movement 
of  the  army  which  a  discontented  people  so  loudly  demanded, 
the  boys  were  taken  sick  and  little  "Willie  died. 

The  "White  House  was  a  gloomy  place  during  the  illness  of 
the  children,  but  it  was  none  the  less  a  busy  one-.  All  work 
went  on  as  usual.  If  the  President  left  his  office  to  visit  the 
sick-room,  it  was  only  to  return  again  and  meet  as  before  the 
hourly  tribulations  of  his  unrelaxing  service  of  his  country. 
Even  the  presence  of  death  in  the  house  could  not  privilege 
him  to  remit  for  one  moment  his  supervision  of  all  the  multi- 
tudinous life  and  death  intrusted  to  his  care  by  the  people  he 
was  ruling. 

It  is  impossible  for  any  man  or  woman  who  has  never  passed 
through  some  such  trial  to  grasp  and  comprehend  the  inner 
experiences  which  surely  came  to  Mr.  Lincoln  at  that  time. 
A  multitude  of  those  who  have  endured  corresponding  ordeals 
will  need  no  other  key  to  the  understanding  of  some  of  his 
subsequent  utterances. 


TEE  HABDEST  BLOW.  345 

The  good  lady  who  acted  as  nurse  for  the  little  sufferers  re- 
lates that  their  father  came  in,  at  times,  to  watch  by  them,  and 
that  on  one  occasion  he  walked  up  and  down  the  room,  saying 
sadly :  "  This  is  the  hardest  trial  of  my  life !  Why  is  it  ? 
Why  is  it?" 

It  was  not  merely  a  selfish  expression  of  petulant  sorrow. 
Just  so  he  was  accustomed  to  walk  up  and  down,  in  his  great 
Executive  work-room,  alone,  at  night,  after  the  news  had 
come  of  some  great  battle,  whether  a  victory  or  defeat.  It 
was  late,  indeed,  when  the  sound  of  his  slow,  heavy,  grief- 
laden  footsteps  ceased,  on  the  nights  after  Ball's  Bluff,  Chan- 
cellorsville,  and  Fredericksburg,  and  in  each  case  the  agonized 
question  upon  his  lips  must  have  been  the  same. 

To  all  such  questions,  when  honestly  asked,  there  is  an  an- 
swer, although  it  may  not  always  be  heard  at  once.  A  part  of 
it  seems  to  have  been  sent  to  Mr.  Lincoln  through  this  very 
lady.  Numbers  of  kind,  good  people  who  knew  it  did  their 
best  to  send  it  to  him.  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland  records  of  her  that, 
after  the  worst  had  come  and  the  stroke  had  fallen,  when  she 
told  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  conversation,  her  own  story  of  trial ;  that 
she  was  a  widow,  all  alone,  her  husband  and  two  children  being 
in  heaven  ;  she  added  that  she  saw  the  hand  of  God  in  it  all, 
and  had  never  loved  Him  before  her  affliction  as  she  had 
since. 

Mr.  Lincoln  inquired  of  her :  "  How  is  that  brought  about  ?" 

She  replied :  "  Simply  by  trusting  in  God  and  feeling  that 
He  does  all  things  well." 

He  asked :  "  Did  you  submit  fully  under  the  first  loss  ?" 

Little  she  may  have  guessed  what  memories  of  suffering 
were  lurking  behind  the  few  words  of  that  simple  question. 
She  did  not  know  what  shattering  of  the  very  reason  and 
clouding  of  the  brain  of  the  man  before  her  had  resulted  from 
his  inability  to  "  submit  fully  under  the  first  loss."  That  had 
been  long  ago,  and  she  was  thinking  only  of  the  present.  She 
answered : 


346  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  Not  wholly ;  but  as  blow  came  upon  blow,  and  all  was  taken, 
I  could  and  did  submit,  and  was  very  happy." 

He  responded :  "  I  am  gkd  to  hear  you  say  that.  Your 
experience  will  help  me  to  bear  my  afflictions."  He  had  de- 
termined to  imitate  her  and  to  fully  submit,  now  blow  upon 
blow  had  come. 

On  the  morning  of  the  funeral  of  Willie,  he  said  of  the 
prayers  offered  for  him  by  the  good  people  all  over  the  land : 
"I  am  glad  to  hear  that.  I  want  them  to  pray  for  me.  I 
need  their  prayers." 

That  to  theirs  he  added  his  own  is  also  a  matter  of  record : 
and  yet  there  have  been,  and  perhaps  now  are,  men  and  women 
so  grossly  ignorant  of  human  nature  as  to  suppose  that  such  an 
effect,  so  produced  upon  such  a  man,  and  followed  by  an  in- 
creasing instead  of  diminishing  attrition  of  toil  and  trial,  was 
or  could  be  other  than  eternally  indelible. 

A  few  weeks  later,  before  the  grass  grew  well  upon  the 
grave  of  little  Willie,  occurred  the  terrific  fighting  and  slaughter 
of  Shiloh  and  Corinth,  in  which  victory  was  wrested  from  the 
jaws  of  defeat  at  the  cost  of  the  sons  of  thousands  of  darkened 
households.  It  was  an  occasion  for  thankfulness,  and  Mr. 
Lincoln  issued  a  proclamation  of  thanksgiving  for  that  and 
other  victories,  asking  the  people  to  "  render  thanks  to  our 
Heavenly  Father  for  these  inestimable  blessings." 

The  thanks  were  sincere,  for  the  gleams  of  light  from  the 
West  were  greatly  needed  in  those  days  of  national  darkness 
and  depression ;  but  the  lesson  of  the  President's  personal  trial 
followed  in  the  plain  words  which  directed  those  who  offered 
thanks  also  to  "  implore  spiritual  consolation  in  behalf  of  all 
those  who  have  been  brought  into  affliction  by  the  casualties 
and  calamities  of  civil  war." 

Not  then,  perhaps  not  now,  could  Southern  fathers  and 
mothers  accept  the  idea  that  he  could  not  possibly  have  ex- 
cluded them,  in  his  mental  vision  of  the  sufferers  who  were  in 
need  of  "  spiritual  consolation,"  but  they  were  no  more  ex- 


THE  HARDEST  BLOW.  347 

eluded  from  his  thought  than  they  were  from  the  express  terms 
of  the  proclamation. 

There  was  little  occasion  for  Mr.  Lincoln  to  express  himself 
upon  doctrinal  points.  His  early  life  and  subsequent  associa- 
tions had  put  it  out  of  his  power  to  examine,  approve,  and  ac- 
cept any  one  formulated  creed  of  any  one  church  or  sect,  even 
if  he  had  set  himself  at  the  task  of  selection ;  but  his  reverence 
for  God  and  His  revealed  law  continued  to  increase. 

When  a  delegation  of  well-meaning  gentlemen  called  upon 
him  to  urge,  in  effect,  that  no  more  battles  should  be  fought 
on  Sunday,  as  so  many  already  had  been  fought,  he  could  re- 
ply, half  humorously,  that  the  Rebel  commanders  would  need 
to  be  taken  into  consultation  before  anything  definite  could  be 
done  in  that  direction.  Nevertheless,  on  the  16th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1862,  he  sent  out  to  the  soldiers  a  circular  letter  which 
gave  his  views  upon  the  Sunday  question  very  distinctly.  He 
urged  upon  them  that^  "  The  importance  for  man  and  beast  of 
the  prescribed  weekly  rest,  the  sacred  rights  of  Christian  sol- 
diers and  sailors,  a  becoming  deference  to  the  best  sentiment 
of  a  Christian  people,  and  a  due  regard  for  the  Divine  "Will, 
demand  that  Sunday  labor  in  the  army  and  navy  be  reduced 
to  the  measure  of  strict  necessity."  He  added,  even  more 
strenuously :  "  The  discipline  and  character  of  the  national 
forces  should  not  suffer,  nor  the  cause  they  defend  be  imper- 
iled, by  the  profanation  of  the  day  or  the  name  of  the  Most 
High." 

The  only  escape  from  the  obvious  meaning  of  these  and 
many  other  similar  utterances,  as  expressions  of  the  operations 
and  condition  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  mind  at  this  time,  is  to  roundly 
charge  him  with  hypocrisy. 

This,  too,  has  been  done ;  but  the  absurdity  of  the  allegation 
comes  out  in  strong  relief  when  the  words  he  spoke  are  exam- 
ined in  connection  with  dates  and  facts,  and  particularly  when 
collated  with  the  sad  event  in  his  own  family. 

It  is  now  forever  too  late  to  call  in  question  either  the  fact  or 


348  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  depth  of  his  religious  convictions.  It  is  too  late  to  deny 
that  he  again  and  again  made  public  as  well  as  private  profes- 
sion of  his  simple  faith.  Especially  is  it  of  no  manner  of  im- 
portance for  the  best  of  witnesses  to  testify,  "  he  used  to  talk, 
sometimes,  kind  o'  half-way  infidel,  when  I  knew  him,  back  in 
Illinois."  The  testimony  may  cheerfully  be  accepted  as  hon- 
estly given,  but  it  does  not  bear  at  all  upon  the  case  before  the 
court. 


THE  TRENT  AFFAIR.  349 


CHAPTEE   XLIII. 

THE   TRENT   AFFAIR. 

Two  Frontier  Posts — Western  Successes — A  Slice  at  a  Time — Trouble  with 
England — Shortsighted  Patriotism — A  Message  to  the  English  People — 
Captain  Wilkes  Promoted — Border  State  Unionism. 

AT  the  outset  of  the  Rebellion  the  District  of  Columbia  was 
as  much  within  the  intended  boundaries  of  the  Confederacy  as 
was  any  similar  area  on  the  northern  line  of  the  State  of  Ten- 
nessee. Maryland  was  even  more  nearly  ready  for  secession 
than  Kentucky ;  and  the  difficulty  of  retaining  either  State 
in  the  Union  was  about  the  same,  and  required  the  operation 
of  competent  armed  forces  as  well  as  prudent  statesmanship. 
Washington  city  was  therefore,  in  the  beginning,  a  position 
occupied  by  the  Union  troops  well  within  the  enemy's  lines. 
Afterwards  it  became  an  all-important  frontier  post. 

That  the  city  was  occupied  or  held  at  all  was  due  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  success  in  carrying  on  the  war  for  months  before  the 
people  generally  knew  there  was  one  going  forward. 

A  serious  aggravation  and  complication  of  the  difficulties  of 
the  situation  resulted  from  this  history  and  locality  of  the 
political  capital.  The  minds  of  men,  at  home  and  abroad,  be- 
came absorbed  in  watching  the  fluctuations  of  the  struggle  for 
the  capture,  at  one  time,  of  the  city  of  Washington  and,  at 
another,  of  the  almost  correspondingly  situated  city  of  Rich- 
mond. The  interest  in  these  campaigns,  their  advances  and 
retreats,  their  many  and  bloody  battles,  became  so  deep  that 
equally  important  contests  in  other  parts  of  the  great  field 
failed  to  receive  the  popular  attention  they  merited.  Had  the 
importance  of  successes  in  the  West  been  better  understood  by 


350  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  people,  their  depressions  over  disasters  in  the  East  would 
have  been,  at  times,  advantageously  diminished. 

To  the  mind  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  to  many  other  minds,  civil 
and  military,  it  was  an  axiom  that  the  Confederacy  must  needs 
be  taken  possession  of,  as  he  curtly  expressed  it,  "  a  slice  at  a 
time."  That  was  the  way  in  which  it  was  done ;  but  it  was  not 
always  easy  to  persuade  men  of  the  value  of  the  consecutive 
slices  as  they  were  cut  off  and  secured. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  war  the  great  State  of  Missouri  was 
more  in  doubt  as  to  its  political  future  than  was  Maryland.  Its 
loss  would  have  entailed  consequences  every  way  as  disastrous 
to  the  Union  cause ;  but  the  rapid  series  of  movements  and  suc- 
cesses, beginning  with  those  of  General  John  C.  Fremont, 
which  placed  it  beyond  the  reach  of  the  Confederate  com- 
manders was  but  moderately  appreciated  on  the  Atlantic  sea- 
board and  not  at  all  in  Europe.  It  was  won  and  held  by 
achievements  of  high  merit  both  in  statesmanship  and  arms ; 
and  in  like  manner  was  the  State  of  Kentucky  severed  from 
the  hopes  of  the  Confederacy.  Subsequent  operations  were 
transferred  from  the  Ohio  River  and  the  Illinois  line  of  the 
Mississippi  River  and  the  Iowa  border,  away  down  to  the  line 
of  the  Cumberland  River,  and  the  grand  result  was  accepted 
by  the  public  very  much  as  if  a  ripe  apple  had  fallen  from  a 
tree.  The  consecutive  apples  fell,  indeed,  but  the  shaking  of 
the  tree  began  very  early  in  the  season  and  cost  the  lives  of 
many  thousands  of  brave  men. 

There  was  a  respectable  amount  of  popular  rejoicing  when  a 
permanent  foothold  was  won,  by  the  Federal  forces  under  Burn- 
side,  on  the  sea-coast  of  North  Carolina ;  but  the  grumbling  mul- 
titude refused  to  see  that  it  was  of  any  great  importance  to  the 
general  result. 

Even  when,  in  April,  1862,  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  and 
with  it  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  River,  fell  into  the  hands 
of  the  national  troops  and  a  fair  degree  of  enthusiasm  was 
kindled,  for  a  moment,  nine  men  out  of  ten  would  have  tossed 


TEE  TRENT  AFFAIR.  351 

their  hats  more  zealously  over  the  news  of  a  much  less  fruitful 
victory  on  the  Potomac. 

It  was  not  so  with  Mr.  Lincoln.  From  first  to  last  he 
watched  the  course  of  events  in  the  West  with  an  int&^st 
which  never  flagged.  All  that  country  was  familiar  ground  to 
him,  and  he  made  himself  thoroughly  master  of  the  peculiar 
campaigning  required  for  its  reduction.  He  knew  the  rivers 
and  their  variations  of  flood  and  fall ;  the  lowlands  and  the 
highlands  and  their  roads  and  lack  of  roads ;  more  than  all, 
he  knew,  better  than  did  the  Eastern  generals  and  statesmen 
around  him,  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  varied  popula- 
tions and  how  very  far  they  were  from  being  one  people. 

The  civil  war  was  a  War  for  the  Union  in  more  ways  than 
one.  In  all  its  processes  it  operated  as  a  national  unifier,  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  aided  the  processes  as  best  he  could.  He  drew 
Western  soldiers  to  fight  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  until  he 
changed  materially  the  originally  somewhat  sectional  composi- 
tion of  that  organism.  He  sent  Eastern  troops  to  join  in  the 
marches  and  battles  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  It  was  not 
by  any  manner  of  accident  that  volunteers  from  widely  sepa- 
rated localities  found  themselves  marching  up  to  the  guns  of 
the  enemy  shoulder  to  shoulder.  Even  as  early  as  December, 
1862,  the  records  show  that  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  con- 
tained regiments,  batteries,  or  brigades  from  Wisconsin,  In- 
diana, Michigan,  Minnesota,  Ohio,  and  Illinois.  At  a  some- 
what later  date,  the  Army  of  the  Cumberland  contained,  in 
like  manner,  distinct  organizations  from  Pennsylvania,  New 
York,  New  Jersey,  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  Maryland,  and 
Maine.  This  wise  blending  of  the  contingents  of  the  several 
States  continued  to  the  end  of  the  war. 

How  closely  the  President  watched  the  military  operations 
in  the  West  appears  from  his  dispatches  and  correspondence. 
It  is  further  illustrated  by  his  recognition  of  the  successive 
achievements  of  Pope,  Halleck,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  Grant,  and 
a  long  list  of  other  meritorious  officers. 


352  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

His  eyes  were  everywhere ;  and  everywhere  the  commanders 
and  soldiers,  in  camp  and  field,  were  made  conscious  of  his 
thoughtful  sympathy,  and  made  to  feel  the  eager  help  with 
which  he  urged  them  to  the  performance  of  their  duty.  He 
gave  them  all  but  his  personal  presence,  and  his  telegraphic 
correspondence  proves  that  they  almost  had  that  also.  Still  the 
records  of  battles  and  sieges,  in  whatever  section  or  locality, 
belong  to  the  history  of  the  war  and  not  to  the  "  life"  of  the 
man. 

The  year  1862  contained  other  than  military  problems  for 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  meet  and  solve.  Our  foreign  affairs  were  suf- 
ficiently complicated  by  the  almost  unconcealed  sympathy  of 
England  and  France  with  the  Jefferson  Davis  government. 
Mr.  Seward  had  already  established  a  high  reputation  as  a 
diplomatist  by  the  skill  and  vigor  with  which  he  had  continu- 
ally parried  their  expressions  of  half -angry  discontent.  The 
Confederate  ruler  had  it  in  mind  to  establish  closer  relations 
with  these  very  powers,  and  with  that  object  sent  out  two  com- 
missioners, duly  accredited.  These  men,  named  Mason  and 
Slidell,  had  both  been  members  of  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  Escaping  from  Charleston  to  Cuba,  they  sailed  from 
Havana,  on  the  Yth  of  November,  on  the  British  mail-steamer 
Trent,  bound  for  St.  Thomas.  On  the  next  day  the  Trent  was 
stopped  at  sea  by  the  United  States  war-steamer  San  Jacintoy 
Captain  Wilkes ;  the  two  commissioners  were  taken  out  of  her 
by  force,  against  the  protests  of  her  officers,  and  carried  to  the 
United  States  to  be  shut  up  in  Fort  Warren. 

It  was  a  high-handed  proceeding,  strongly  resembling,  in 
many  of  its  features,  the  accustomed  course  of  Great  Britain  in 
dealing  with  weaker  powers ;  and  the  indignation  it  aroused  in 
the  British  mind,  official  and  otherwise,  was  extreme.  It  was 
natural  that  such  should  be  the  case ;  but  the  tone  and  manner 
in  which  the  indignation  found  expression  rendered  the  task  of 
offering  reparation  a  peculiarly  hard  one.  The  path  to  hostili- 
ties was  made  easy  and  the  path  to  peace  was  half  shut  up. 


THE  TRENT  AFFAIR.  353 

At  the  same  time  Mr.  Lincoln's  perplexities  were  multiplied 
by  the  state  of  the  public  mind  at  the  North.  It  was  exceed- 
ingly bitter  against  England,  for  it  was  well  understood  that 
her  ill  offices  to  us  in,our  hour  of  trouble  had  but  lamely  halted 
short  of  open  war,  and  that  further  evil  was  sure  to  come  to  us 
from  her.  Popular  patience  was  nearly  exhausted,  and,  for  a 
moment,  the  general  opinion  was  plainly  and  loudly  uttered 
that  avowed  and  regular  hostilities  could  do  us  little  more  harm 
than  could  the  veiled  but  steady  pressure  and  the  secret  thrusts 
of  a  half -concealed  enmity.  The  capture  of  the  two  Rebel  emis- 
saries was  hailed  with  an  acclaim  as  boisterous  as  if  Captain 
"Wilkes  had  won  a  great  sea-fight  and  had  not  disturbed  the 
shadowy  "law  of  nations"  in  the  least.  He  became,  in  fact,  the 
hero  of  the  hour. 

It  was  necessary,  however,  that  we  should  have  no  open 
quarrel  with  England,  and  the  law  of  the  matter  was  sufficiently 
in  her  favor  to  enable  the  United  States  to  withdraw  witht 
dignity,  almost  in  spite  of  her. 

At  that  juncture  of  the  struggle  with  the  South,  a  new 
crisis;  British  fleets  upon  the  coast;  British  supplies  of 
money  and  war  material  pouring  into  the  ports  of  the  Con- 
federacy without  restriction,  instead  of  under  serious  diffi- 
culties ;  British  annoyance  of  Northern  seaports,  and  the  neces- 
sity for  the  immediate  conquest  of  the  Canadas  by  the  United 
States, — would  have  added  terribly  to  the  burdens  of  the  nation. 
The  result  to  the  United  States  might  have  been  the  same,  in 
the  long-run ;  but  the  "  run"  would  have  been  longer,  and  the 
cost  vastly  greater.  England,  indeed,  might  have  been  badly 
crippled ;  but  there  would  have  been  loss  instead  of  gain  in 
that,  for  no  sensible  American  wishes  to  see  her  crippled.  In 
fact,  it  is  hard  to  imagine  anything  more  short-sighted  and 
stupid  than  the  enmity  of  the  then  government  of  England  to 
the  cause  of  the  Union.  As  Mr.  Lincoln  pointedly  remarked 
to  the  English  people  in  his  next  Message  to  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States,  the  shortest  way  out  of  the  commercial  diffi- 


354  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN: 

culties  resulting  to  foreign  nations  from  our  civil  war  was  to 
be  found  in  the  prompt  suppression  rather  than  in  the  pro- 
longed maintenance  of  the  Rebellion.  It  was  strictly  true ; 
and  if  England  and  France  suffered  losses  from  the  continu- 
ance of  the  war,  the  responsibility  therefor  was  largely  their 
own.  England  was  practically  and  very  effectively  the  ally  oJ 
the  South,  on  land  and  sea ;  while  the  animus  of  the  French 
Imperial  Government,  never  more  than  externally  courteous, 
found  its  most  perfect  expression  at  last  in  its  ill-fated  Mexican 
policy,  rendered  possible  only  by  the  fact  that  the  hands  of  the 
United  States  were  tied  from  interfering. 

The  refusal  of  Mr.  Lincoln  to  be  dragged  into  a  war  with 
England  was  a  bitter  disappointment  to  the  Confederacy  and 
to  all  our  other  national  enemies,  and  not  even  the  truly  ad- 
mirable management  of  the  matter  by  the  Secretary  of  State 
could  altogether  satisfy  the  angry  patriots  who  had  glorified 
•Captain  Wilkes. 

The  government  was  roundly  and  lavishly  berated ;  but  the 
iwo  Rebel  commissioners  were  liberated ;  and  Captain  "Wilkes 
^was  soon  promoted. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  under  a  perpetual  pressure  from  the  most 
sincere  and  earnest  supporters  of  the  government,  for  these 
were  mostly  men  of  positive  minds  and  strong  convictions. 
They  were  the  very  men  to  make  a  great  nation  out  of,  and 
they  spoke  their  minds  liberally.  They  could  not  see  all  the 
obstacles  in  his  way,  as  he  saw  them,  nor  was  it  always  safe  to 
explain  too  fully  and  minutely  what  he  was  doing. 

The  very  existence  of  some  of  his  most  serious  hindrances 
had  to  be  kept  to  himself.  The  men  were  by  no  means  numer- 
ous who  could  have  been  made  to  understand  the  methods  pur- 
sued with  the  border-States,  and  notably  with  Kentucky. 
That  name  and  those  of  Maryland  and  Missouri  and  Delaware, 
and  so  forth,  were  but  geographical  expressions  to  the  great 
majority.  The  President,  however,  was  dealing,  not  with  geo- 
graphy and  local  boundaries,  but  with  men,  and  their  prejudices 


THE  TRENT  AFFAIR.  355 

and  fears  and  self-interests,  and,  what  was  all-important,  with 
their  sure  changes  of  opinion. 

In  the  same  Message  to  the  Congress  above  mentioned,  he 
was  able  to  say :  "  These  three  States,  of  Maryland,  Kentucky, 
and  Missouri,  neither  of  which  would  promise  a  single  soldier 
at  the  first,  have  now  an  aggregate  of  not  less  than  forty 
thousand  in  the  field  for  the  Union ;  while,  of  their  citizens, 
certainly  not  more  than  a  third  of  that  number,  and  they  of 
doubtful  whereabouts  and  doubtful  existence,  are  in  arms 
against  it." 


356  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK   XLIY. 

A  DARK   WINTER. 

Fredericksburg — A  Lost  Opportunity — Burnside  and  Hooker — The  Bur- 
dens of  a  Military  Establishment — Congressional  Counselors — The 
Heart  of  the  Nation — An  Extraordinary  Ambassador— The  Birth  of 
the  Union  League. 

THE  year  1862  closed,  both  for  the  country  and  for  Mr. 
Lincoln,  in  the  great  grief  of  the  defeat  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  at  Fredericksburg.  It  was  a  blow  of  peculiar  severity 
to  the  President,  for  he  was  made  to  seem  responsible  for  the 
movements  which  led  to  it  and  for  the  mismanaged  battle  itself. 
It  affected  him  very  deeply,  and  yet,  now  that  all  the  facts 
have  been  sought  out,  it  is  impossible  to  charge  him  with  any 
fault  in  the  premises. 

That  he  had  earnestly  insisted  upon  active  operations  was 
true.  He  had  done  that  daily,  from  the  outset ;  but  he  had 
not  undertaken  to  direct  details ;  and  the  inexcusable  blunders 
of  the  Fredericksburg  fight  were  committed  without  his 
knowledge. 

The  history  of  the  affair  had  deep  lessons  in  it.  By  an  un- 
derstanding with  General  Burnside,  General  McClellan  con- 
tinued in  command  until  the  9th  of  November,  and  the  orders 
for  the  forward  movement  were  issued  by  him  in  person.  No 
change,  for  a  number  of  days,  was  made  in  the  plans  which  he 
had  previously  approved.  General  Halleck  had  at  once  called 
upon  General  Burnside  for  a  "  plan  of  campaign,"  and  the 
latter  prepared  and  submitted  an  abstract  of  his  conception  of 
the  situation.  This  did  not  meet  the  approval  of  the  General- 
in-Chief,  and  he  at  once  went,  in  person,  to  General  Burnside's 
headquarters,  at  "Warrenton,  Virginia.  Here,  on  the  12th  and 


A  DARK  WINTER.  357 

13th  of  the  month,  a  long  conference  was  held,  which  resulted 
in  the  submission  of  their  separate  plans  to  the  President.  On 
the  14th,  General  Halleck  telegraphed  to  General  Burnside 
Mr.  Lincoln's  assent  to  the  views  of  the  latter,  but  with  this 
vital  and  unmistakable  indication,  in  the  express  words  of  the 
dispatch :  "  He  thinks  it  [your  plan]  will  succeed  if  you  move 
rapidly.  Otherwise,  not." 

Nothing  could  be  more  plain  and  definite  in  the  rendering 
of  a  military  decision.  Subsequent  investigations  justify  Mr. 
Lincoln.  If  General  Burnside  had  moved  rapidly,  as  he  did 
not,  his  troops  would  have  been  in  possession  of  the  very  posi- 
tion at  Fredericksburg,  then  unoccupied,  from  which  he  after- 
wards vainly  strove  to  dislodge  the  iron  veterans  of  General 
Lee. 

The  approval  of  his  plan,  as  submitted,  by  no  means  im- 
plied that  he  should  permit  the  best  general  of  the  Confederacy, 
with  a  recorded  force  of  78,228  effective  men  and  guns  in  pro- 
portion, to  deliberately  intrench  himself  on  ground  of  his  own 
choosing,  and  then,  without  any  definite  plan  of  battle,  to  hurl 
against  them,  in  vague  incapacity,  column  after  column  of 
doomed  volunteers. 

That  is  about  all  that  can  be  said  of  the  generalship  of  the 
battle  of  Fredericksburg.  The  men  behaved  splendidly.  They 
inflicted  sharp  losses  upon  their  antagonists.  They  were  sent 
to  do  an  impossibility,  and  they  failed  simply  because  it  was 
an  impossibility ;  but,  for  a  hurt  and  disappointed  moment, 
half  the  nation  believed  that  they  had  been  ordered  to  the  vain 
effort  by  a  "  civilian"  President,  interfering  with  and  over- 
ruling his  general  in  the  field. 

General  Burnside  was  under  no  pressure  whatever  which 
need  have  impelled  him  to  the  assault  of  General  Lee's  posi- 
tion ;  and  there  was  no  good  reason,  political  or  military,  why 
the  Rebel  army  should  not  have  been  permitted  to  encamp  all 
winter  in  those  particular  intrenchments.  If  Lee  could  have 
been  induced  to  do  that  very  thing,  as  he  surely  could  not  have 


358  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

been,  being  a  man  of  uncommon  good  sense  in  such  matters, 
the  result  would  have  been  a  greater  advantage  to  the  Union 
arms  than  had  been  won  upon  the  banks  of  the  Antietam 
Creek.  The  very  maintenance  of  his  army  was  draining  the 
life-blood  of  the  Confederacy,  while  the  resources  of  the  North 
had  hardly  as  yet  been  drawn  upon.  "  Active  operations"  to 
keep  him  there  would  have  been  grand  generalship.  Much 
hard  fighting  would  have  been  required  for  such  a  feat ;  but  all 
the  while  the  Confederacy  would  have  been  bleeding  to  death, 
and  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  would  not  have  scored  another 
bloody  disaster. 

The  American  people  had  no  experience  of  what  is  called 
"  militarism,"  and  had  but  little  actual  knowledge  of  the  need- 
less monstrosities  which  curse  the  Old  World  under  the  guise 
of  "  governments."  A  consequence  of  this  was  that  a  most 
erroneous  impression  prevailed,  throughout  the  free  States,  as 
to  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  sacrifices  they  had  made  and  as 
to  their  remaining  capacity  for  more  of  the  same  kind. 

Every  great  nation  in  Europe  is  compelled,  habitually,  year 
by  year,  to  do  all  that  the  North  had  done,  up  to  that  time, 
except  as  to  the  cost  of  what  manufacturing  establishments  de- 
scribe as  "  the  plant"  of  their  undertakings.  That  is,  the  pro- 
vision of  machinery  and  appliances  and  the  needful  outlays 
involved  in  beginnings  upon  new  ground.  The  waste  had 
been  considerable,  in  many  directions,  but  the  growth  and 
prosperity  of  the  community,  as  a  whole,  had  not  been  danger- 
ously interfered  with.  A  very  different  state  of  things  existed 
at  the  South,  owing  to  fundamental  defects  of  the  Southern 
social  structure. 

The  battle  of  Fredericksburg  was  fought  on  the  13th  of  De- 
cember, just  after  the  assembling  of  Congress,  while  Mr.  Lin- 
coln was  preparing  to  deal  with  the  most  dangerous  period  of 
his  political  administration.  It  rendered  a  winter  campaign 
in  Virginia  an  impossibility,  and  made  necessary  another 
change  in  the  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  Gen- 


A  DARK  WINTEE.  359 

eral  Burnside  was  relieved  and  General  Joseph  Hooker  was 
named  in  Ms  place. 

"  Fighting  Joe,"  as  his  immediate  command  had  delighted 
to  call  him,  was  a  tried  soldier,  but,  regarded  as  a  general  in 
charge  of  a  great  army,  he  was  necessarily  another  experiment. 
Neither  the  President,  nor  the  army,  nor  the  country  at  large, 
was  ready  to  invest  him  with  unlimited  confidence  as  to  his 
fitness  for  his  new  and  vast  responsibilities.  He  himself  was 
probably  the  only  man  in  the  nation  who  never  for  a  moment 
lacked  or  lost  that  very  unlimited  confidence :  and  there  was 
both  good  and  evil  in  that  trait  of  his  character. 

Congress  assembled  in  a  perplexed  and  captious  frame  of 
mind.  Almost  every  member  was  filled  to  the  lips  with  ut- 
tered, or  unuttered  and  unutterable,  criticisms  upon  the  policy 
of  the  Administration  and  the  management  of  the  war.  A 
steady  stream  of  Senators  and  Representatives  poured  into  and 
out  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  office  at  the  White  House,  and  their 
recommendations  of  their  constituents  for  appointments  and 
promotions  were  accompanied  by  statements,  more  or  less 
frank  and  positive,  of  their  individual  views  upon  the  ques- 
tions of  the  day.  It  is  very  interesting,  now,  to  discover  how 
unvarying  is  the  testimony  borne  by  all  these  intelligent  and 
patriotic  men  to  the  kindly  and  considerate  reception  they  met 
with  at  the  hands  of  the  President.  This,  too,  even  when  the 
strength  of  their  convictions  or  the  warmth  of  their  tempers 
gave  their  language  the  tone  and  form  of  severe  censure.  He 
could  afford  to  take  it  from  such  men,  and  to  present,  in  return 
his  own  understanding  of  the  matter.  So  it  came  to  pass,  be- 
fore long,  that  his  Congressional  censors  became  bound  to  him 
by  near  ties  of  mutual  understanding  and  respect.  A  sort  of 
family  feeling  grew  in  the  hearts  of  many,  unconsciously  re- 
garding themselves  as  watching  the  control  of  the  common 
household  by  a  man  who  oddly  combined  the  functions  of  a 
father  and  an  elder  brother.  As  for  the  people  generally,  they 
had  become  well  accustomed  to  talking,  half  affectionately,  about 


360  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  Father  Abraham ;"  but  there  were  not  lacking  some  statesmen 
who  seemed  to  look  upon  him  rather  as  somehow  a  sort  of 
senior  partner  and  business  manager  of  a  firm  in  which  they 
were  at  least  "junior"  partners  and  entitled  to  a  voice  in  the 
direction  of  all  its  affairs. 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  look  upon  Congress  itself  as,  in  any 
manner  or  sense,  a  "  junior  partner,"  and  these  perpetual  con- 
sultations with  its  individual  members  enabled  him  to  explain 
to  that  body  both  his  past  conduct  and  his  future  plans  quite 
satisfactorily.  The  net  result  was  that  laws  were  passed  to 
cover  the  one  and  provide  for  the  other,  and  the  proposers  of 
the  specific  "  bills"  required  for  the  objects  attained  continued 
to  their  dying  days  under  the  impression  that  the  legislation 
originated  with  them  and  not  with  Mr.  Lincoln.  This  had 
been  the  rule  from  the  beginning,  and  illustrates  notably  his 
infallible  prescience  of  the  popular  will  and  of  its  approval  or 
disapproval  of  any  supposable  course  of  action.  There  was 
nothing  mysterious  or  magical  in  this  faculty.  It  is  not  even 
difficult  to  discern  its  source  and  the  methods  of  its  opera- 
tion. 

Any  purpose  which  any  man  may  put  in  form,  or  any  act  to 
which  he  may  give  his  free  assent,  must  be,  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent,  an  expression  of  his  "  will."  The  will  of  any  man 
is  the  resultant  of  the  emotions  of  what  we  describe  as  his 
heart,  guided,  although  under  many  interferences,  by  whatever 
he  may  have  of  reason.  If,  therefore,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  any 
sufficient  gauge  or  measure  of  the  emotions  of  the  men  and 
women  upon  whose  united  wills  his  power  depended,  he  could 
then  trace  with  ease  the  average  results  of  their  reasoning  pro- 
cesses. 

That  he  continually  did  this  very  thing  is  a  matter  of  re- 
cord, and  has  been  commented  upon  as  a  marvel;  but  it  was 
nothing  of  the  kind.  He  possessed  an  unerring  "gauge"  in 
the  sea-like  depth  and  breadth  and  power  of  his  own  emotional 
nature,  adjusted  as  it  was  to  the  solemn  and  mournful  earnest- 


A  DARK  WINTER.  361 

ness  of  those  days  of  trial.  He  suffered  with  all,  and  more  than 
each ;  and  he  could  therefore  understand  all  and  be  sure  how 
far  the  popular  heart  and  will  would  go  with  him  and  sustain 
him  in  the  exercise  of  power,  at  any  time  or  in  any  direction. 
He  accepted,  as  frankly  and  unselfishly  as  it  was  offered,  the 
growing  reverence  and  love  of  multitudes.  It  was  to  him  per- 
fectly natural  that  they  should  feel  as  he  did,  and  should  most 
humanly  expect  him  to  feel  as  they  did.  So  he  could  talk 
with  women  about  their  sons,  and  not  be  at  all  ashamed  to  weep 
a  little  with  them  when  he  could  not  altogether  restrain  him- 
self. The  tears  welled  up  more  and  more  easily  as  time  went 
by,  and  yet  they  did  not  often  get  up  further  than  into  the 
softening  tones  of  his  voice  or  the  ever-deepening  sadness  of 
his  eyes. 

Corresponding  processes  of  unformulated  interior  thought 
enabled  the  President  to  gauge  with  accuracy  the  growing 
bitterness  of  the  "opposition"  leaders.  He  had  little  time  to 
spend  in  reading  their  printed  calumnies  and  vituperations,  or 
even  in  hearing  the  reports  of  them  brought  him  by  his  friends. 
Every  now  and  then  his  angry  assailants  forced  their  views 
upon  him,  in  one  form  or  another.  His  mails  were  fairly 
overflowing  with  wrathful  communications  which  he  never 
saw ;  but  now  and  then  his  eye  and  ear  were  gained  through 
other  channels. 

A  representative  man  of  the  opposition  to  the  Administra- 
tion, and  peculiarly  of  that  wing  of  it  which  had  openly  sym- 
pathized with  the  Eebellion,  was  Mr.  Fernando  Wood,  of  New 
York.  This  was  the  man  who,  when  mayor  of  that  city,  at 
the  outbreak  of  secession,  had  publicly  advised  that  the  muni- 
cipality should  set  up  for  itself  as  a  "  free  city,"  so  severing  its 
connection  with  abolitionism  and  retaining  its  commercial  re- 
lations with  the  cotton-producing  areas  of  the  South.  In  the 
latter  part  of  1862  he  addressed  to  Mr.  Lincoln  a  letter,  in 
which  he  set  forth  that  he  was  trustworthily  advised  that  the 
Southern  States  would  send  representatives  to  the  next  Con- 


362  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

gress,  provided  that  a  full  and  general  amnesty  should  permit 
them  to  do  so. 

The  trap  was  neither  so  well  set  nor  so  well  baited  as  it 
seemed  to  be,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  not  drawn  into  any  blunder. 
He  quietly  replied,  on  the  12th  of  December,  the  day  before 
the  battle  of  Fredericksburg,  and  while  he  was  obviously  not 
superintending,  by  telegraph  or  otherwise,  the  precise  move- 
ments of  the  Army.  He  paid  but  moderate  attention  to  any 
part  of  Mr.  Wood's  letter,  except  that  which  declared  his 
^w^si-diplomatic  position  and  authority.  Of  this,  he  said: 
"  I  strongly  suspect  your  information  will  prove  to  be  ground- 
less ;  nevertheless  I  thank  you  for  communicating  it  to  me. 
Understanding  the  phrase  in  the  paragraph  above  quoted 
[from  Mr.  Wood's  letter],  "  the  Southern  States  will  send  repre- 
sentatives to  the  next  Congress,'  to  be  substantially  the  same 
as  tl^at '  the  people  of  the  Southern  States  would  cease  resist- 
ance, and  would  re-inaugurate,  submit  to,  and  maintain,  the 
national  authority,  within  the  limits  of  such  States ;  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,'  I  say  that  in  such  case  the 
war  would  cease  on  the  part  of  the  United  States ;  and  if, 
within  a  reasonable  time,  a  full  and  general  amnesty  were 
necessary  to  such  an  end,  it  would  not  be  withheld." 

Mr.  Wood  strove  hard  to  carry  the  matter  further,  and  to 
obtain  some  kind  of  authority  from  the  Administration  for 
acting  as  a  go-between  and  proslavery-Democratic  angel  of 
peace ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  could  not  be  induced  to  trust  him  with 
the  honor  of  the  nation  in  such  a  delicate  matter.  Had  he 
done  so,  neither  the  rebels  in  arms,  nor  the  Union  armies, 
nor  the  people  of  the  South,  nor  any  part  of  the  people  of  the 
North,  nor  any  foreign  power  on  earth,  would  have  failed  to 
conclude  and  say :  "  The  disasters  have  done  their  work.  His 
courage  has  failed  him.  He  is  suing  for  peace.  He  has  even 
employed  a  well-known  enemy  as  an  ambassador." 

It  is  true  that  there  was  always  a  large  "  peace  element"  at 
the  South ;  but  at  no  time  was  it  in  even  momentary  power, 


A  DAEK  WINTER.  363 

and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  only  too  well  advised  of  the  increasing 
rigidity  of  the  military  despotism  exercised  by  the  Davis  gov- 
ernment at  Richmond.  He  was  now  watching  it  with  all  the 
greater  solicitude  for  the  reason  that  he  foresaw  a  necessity  for 
tightening  the  pressure  of  the  governmental  machinery  under 
his  own  hands. 

The  disloyal  elements  in  the  free  States,  especially  of  the 
populations  nearest  the  army  lines,  had  for  some  time  been 
taking  on  a  form  of  which  the  general  public  knew  but  little. 
Under  several  names,  secret  affiliations  of  "orders,"  and 
lodges  and  memberships,  honeycombed  the  whole  country, 
in  communication  with  corresponding  organizations  at  the 
South. 

To  counteract  these  agencies  in  some  measure,  as  well  as  to 
afford  an  effective  framework  to  the  political  forces  which 
were  sustaining  the  Administration  and  the  armies  in  the  field, 
Mr.  Lincoln  had  silently  favored  the  creation  of  what  was  soon 
known  as  "  The  Union  League."  Secret  associations  of  Union 
men,  both  white  and  black,  already  existed  at  the  South ;  but 
no  one  of  these  had  succeeded  in  becoming  general.  The 
black  men  are  supposed  to  have  attained  a  common  and  general 
method  of  mutual  recognition  and  confidence,  much  more 
nearly  than  had  the  whites.  Even  as  to  the  former,  however, 
and  surely  as  to  the  latter,  the  more  effective  "  Union  secret 
societies"  of  the  South  were  geographically  restricted  and  local- 
ized. It  was  needful  that  those  of  the  JSTorth  should  be  united 
under  one  organization,  and  that  the  centre  of  its  control  should 
be  at  the  seat  of  government. 

In  the  summer  of  1862  the  nucleus  of  the  League  was 
formed,  at  Washington,  by  the  selection,  rather  than  the  elec- 
tion, of  a  "  Grand  Council "  of  twelve  members.  By  this 
committee  of  control  agents  were  sent  out  in  every  direction 
and  with  great  rapidity.  Local  "  councils"  were  organized  in 
every  city  and  town  and  village  of  the  North.  The  most 
complete  political  machine  ever  known  took  form  in  the  very 


364  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

heat  and  pressure  of  the  fall  elections,  and  spread  its  ramifica- 
tions further  and  deeper  through  all  the  winter  months. 

It  was  not  easy  for  any  critic  to  say  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
anything  to  do  with  it ;  but  there  were  those  who  remarked 
upon  the  suspicious  fact  that  the  Grand  Council  was  made  up 
of  his  personal  friends  and  official  subordinates,  even  to  the 
extent  that  one  of  his  private  secretaries  was  Grand  Corre- 
sponding Secretary  of  the  entire  League. 

In  this  way,  and  otherwise,  every  available  measure  was 
taken  to  organize  the  patriotism  of  the  nation  and  to  maintain 
its  activity.  But  the  President  was  learning  yet  another  lesson 
from  the  Confederacy.  The  Southern  leaders,  almost  from 
the  beginning,  had  made  the  burden  of  their  pitiless  exactions 
fall  most  heavily  upon  the  parts  of  their  populations  which 
they  believed  to  be  least  in  sympathy  with  them.  The 
National  Government  had  touched  its  disaffected  citizens  only 
through  the  equal  bearing  of  taxes  payable  in  money.  The 
awful  tax  which  was  payable  in  human  flesh  and  blood  had 
been  borne  by  the  patriots  only,  of  whatever  political  name  or 
party  affiliation. 

The  men  who  loved  their  country  most  unselfishly  were  in 
the  army  to  so  great  an  extent  that  the  consequences  were  al- 
ready dangerously  manifested  at  the  polls.  Should  the  process 
go  on  uncorrected,  it  might  yet  affect  the  balance  of  power  in 
State  governments  and  in  Congress.  There  were  large  districts 
in  which  the  upholders  of  the  government  were  weak,  not  only 
from  numerical  depletion,  but  because  their  best  and  ablest 
leaders  were  in  the  field  with  their  constituents.  Day  by  day 
their  enemies  grew  more  annoying  and  defiant.  The  Union 
League  was  a  strong  arm,  indeed ;  but  the  situation  demanded 
another  weapon,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  had  planned,  and  now  laid 
before  Congress,  a  new  and  strenuously  energetic  "  policy." 


EXECUTION.  365 


CHAPTEE  XLY. 

EXECUTION. 

Efforts  for  Compensation  to  Owners  of  Slaves  —  Dreams  of  Colonization  — 
The  Future  of  the  African  in  America  —  The  Final  Proclamation  —  The 
Slave-Owner  a  Southern  Sympathizer. 


Congress  assembled  in  December,  1862,  the  issuing 
of  the  final  Proclamation  of  Emancipation  on  the  approaching 
New-  Year's  Day  was  an  already  assured  result. 

Its  future  effect,  so  far  as  the  nominally  seceded  States  were 
concerned,  would  depend  much  upon  the  success  of  current 
military  operations.  The  people,  however,  of  the  border  slave- 
States,  occupied  in  part  or  in  whole  by  Union  armies,  were 
rapidly  becoming  aware  that  the  "  peculiar  institution,"  among 
themselves,  had  received  its  death-blow.  All  discontent  was 
deepened  and  all  loyal  sentiment  was  weakened  in  the  minds 
of  the  slave-owners  of  Maryland,  Missouri,  Delaware,  Kentucky, 
and  West  Virginia,  and  all  in  other  States  that  sympathized 
with  them  and  respected  the  Constitutional  legality  of  their 
human  property.  By  no  fault  of  their  own  they  were  losing 
that  which  had  come  to  them  in  strict  accordance  with  the 
laws  of  their  States  and  country,  and  these  they  were  still 
obeying.  They  had  vested  rights  which  even  the  hand  of 
revolution  and  reformation  was  bound  to  respect  as  far  as 
possible.  It  was  true  that  the  proclamation  did  not  include 
them  in  its  sweeping  blow,  but  there  now  remained  no  effective 
or  operative  power  to  keep  in  bondage  any  slave,  anywhere,  who 
should  make  an  effort  for  freedom.  It  was  a  sense  of  justice, 
therefore,  quite  as  much  as  policy,  which  led  Mr.  Lincoln  to 


366  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

urge  upon  Congress  the  adoption  of  a  system  of  compensated 
emancipation  for  these  areas  and  for  the  reimbursement  of 
loyal  owners  of  the  prices  of  slaves  set  free  by  the  operations 
of  the  war.  Even  at  the  North  such  legislation  was  regarded, 
very  generally,  as  both  wise  and  just.  But  the  measures  pro- 
posed were  permitted  to  die. 

From  an  early  day,  as  a  follower  of  Henry  Clay,  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  vaguely  entertained  the  ideas  of  that  statesman  with 
reference  to  the  colonization  of  the  colored  population.  So 
long  as  the  mass  of  it  seemed  to  be  doomed  to  perpetual  servi- 
tude, the  yearly  shipment  of  a  few  hundreds,  or  even  many 
thousands,  to  any  other  part  of  the  world  was  little  more  than 
a  philanthropic  experiment,  with  but  moderate  possibilities  of 
good  or  evil.  Now,  however,  in  the  very  act  and  hour  of  giv- 
ing wholesale  freedom  to  millions  of  the  marked  race,  the 
problem  of  their  future  well-being  pressed  with  increasing 
force  upon  the  heart  and  brain  of  the  man  who  set  them  free. 
It  was  yet  a  question  in  his  mind  whether  they  could  safely  be 
intrusted  with  the  powers  and  responsibilities  of  citizenship. 
He  openly  stated,  even  to  delegations  of  black  men  standing 
before  him  in  the  Executive  Mansion,  his  belief  that  the  black 
and  white  races,  living  in  contact,  were  a  mutual  detriment  to 
each  other.  It  would  not  be  easy  to  disprove  the  correctness 
of  such  an  opinion  from  the  records  of  the  African  in  America 
up  to  the  year  1863,  and  it  could  even  be  fairly  well  defended 
from  the  annals  of  after-years.  In  his  perplexity,  at  the  time, 
Mr.  Lincoln  turned  to  his  old  dream  of  colonization.  Fantastic 
as  it  was,  he  clung  to  it  for  a  while,  and  until  the  better  con- 
viction forced  itself  upon  him  that  the  Africans  had  come  to 
America  to  stay  and  must  be  made  men  of,  here  and  now. 

His  message  to  Congress,  at  this  session,  did  little  more  than 
set  forth  the  difficulties  he  had  already  discovered  in  the  way 
of  his  idea.  It  is  not  impossible  that  he  learned  something 
from  writing  and  reading  his  own  statement  that  the  black 
man  refused  to  go  to  Liberia  or  to  Hayti,  and  that  there  seemed 


EXECUTION.  367 

to  be  no  other  patch  of  the  earth's  surface  upon  which  he  could 
be  securely  landed. 

Less  than  two  years  later,  still  in  the  same  spirit  of  thought- 
ful care  for  the  welfare  of  the  freed  black  men,  he  was  ready 
to  say,  and  said,  to  a  personal  friend  whom  he  had  appointed  to 
an  important  civil  post  in  one  of  the  seceded  States  which  was 
first  to  be  reconstructed :  "I  am  glad  you  are  so  strongly  in 
favor  of  giving  the  colored  men  the  ballot.  Do  all  you  can  to 
have  it  done  now.  I  urge  you  to  push  the  matter.  Once  the 
war  is  over,  the  ballot  will  soon  be  about  all  the  protection 
they  will  have.  "We  must  fix  it  so  they  can  protect  themselves. 
They  must  have  it  now,  and  then  it  can't  be  taken  away  from 
them." 

That  was  in  September,  1864 ;  but  he  could  not  have  said  as 
much  in  the  winter  of  1862-3,  even  if  the  belief  and  purpose 
had  then  existed  in  his  mind  and  will.  Emancipation  itself, 
by  the  act  of  a  "  military  despotism,"  was  about  as  heavy  a 
burden  as  the  political  fortunes  of  the  Administration  were 
just  then  able  to  carry. 

It  was  staggering  a  little  under  its  accumulated  load,  for  this 
included  the  entire  military  and  diplomatic  situation ;  the  bat- 
tles in  Virginia ;  the  bad  look  of  the  recent  fall  elections ;  the 
necessity  of  increasing  taxes ;  the  reorganization  of  the  national 
finances ;  and  the  imperative  need  for  more  men  to  be  expended 
as  soldiers. 

On  the  first  of  January,  1863,  according  to  his  covenant  in 
September,  the  President  issued  the  final  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation,  as  follows : 

"  Whereas,  on  the  twenty-second  day  of  September,  in  the 
year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  a 
proclamation  was  issued  by  the  President  of  the  United  States, 
containing,  among  other  things,  the  following,  to  wit : 

" '  That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all  persons  held  as 
slaves  in  any  State,  or  designated  part  of  a  State,  the  people 


368  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

whereof  shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
shall  be  then,  thenceforward,  and  forever  free ;  and  the  Execu- 
tive Government  of  the  United  States,  including  the  military 
and  naval  authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the 
freedom  of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress 
such  persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for 
their  actual  freedom. 

" '  That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January  afore- 
said, by  proclamation,  designate  the  States  and  parts  of  States, 
if  any,  in  which  the  people  thereof  respectively  shall  then  be 
in  rebellion  against  the  United  States ;  and  the  fact  that  any 
State  or  the  people  thereof  shall  on  that  day  be  in  good  faith 
represented  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  by  members 
chosen  thereto  at  elections  wherein  a  majority  of  the  qualified 
voters  of  such  State  shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  strong  countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive 
evidence  that  such  State,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  then 
in  rebellion  against  the  United  States.' 

"Now,  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the 
United  States,  by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States  in 
time  of  actual  armed  rebellion  against  the  authority  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  and  as  a  fit  and  necessary  war 
measure  for  suppressing  said  rebellion,  do,  on  this  first  day  of 
January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  sixty-three,  and  in  accordance  with  my  purpose  so  to  do, 
publicly  proclaimed  for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred  days 
from  the  day  first  above  mentioned,  order  and  designate,  as  the 
States  and  parts  of  States  wherein  the  people  thereof  respect- 
ively are  this  day  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  the 
following,  to  wit : 

"  Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana  (except  the  parishes  of  St.  Ber- 
nard, Plaquemine,  Jefferson,  St.  John,  St.  Charles,  St.  James, 
Ascension,  Assumption,  Terre  Bonne,  Lafourche,  St.  Marci, 
St.  Martin,  and  Orleans,  including  the  city  of  New  Orleans), 


EXECUTION.  369 

Mississippi,  Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  North 
Carolina,  and  Virginia  (except  the  forty-eight  counties  desig- 
nated as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the  counties  of  Berkely,  Ac- 
comae,  Northampton,  Elizabeth  City,  York,  Princess  Anne, 
and  Norfolk,  including  the  cities  of  Norfolk  and  Portsmouth), 
and  which  excepted  parts  are  left  precisely  as  if  this  proclama- 
tion were  not  issued. 

"  And,  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purposes  afore- 
said, I  do  order  and  declare  that  all  persons  held  as  slaves 
within  said  designated  States  and  parts  of  States  are,  and 
henceforward  shall  be,  free ;  and  that  the  Executive  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval 
authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom  of 
said  persons. 

"  And  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  people  so  declared  to  be 
free,  to  abstain  from  all  violence,  unless  in  necessary  self-de- 
fense ;  and  I  recommend  to  them  that  in  all  cases,  when  al- 
lowed, they  labor  faithfully  for  reasonable  wages. 

"  And  I  further  declare  and  make  known  that  such  persons 
of  suitable  condition  will  be  received  into  the  armed  service  of 
the  United  States,  to  garrison  forts,  positions,  and  other  places, 
and  to  man  vessels  of  all  sorts  in  said  service. 

"  And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of  justice, 
warranted  by  the  Constitution,  upon  military  necessity,  I  in- 
voke the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind  and  the  gracious 
favor  of  Almighty  God. 

"  In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  name,  and 
caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

"  Done  at  the  city  of  "Washington,  this  first  day  of  January, 
in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
three,  and  of  the  independence  of  the  United  States  the  eighty- 
seventh. 

ABEAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"  By  the  President : 

"WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State." 


370  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  last  door  of  possible  compromise  with  Slavery  was  shut 
and  bolted  firmly.  All  men  knew  that  the  institution  could 
not  be  maintained  in  a  few  detached  States  and  parts  of  States. 
Legislation  might  or  might  not  provide  remedies  for  these,  but 
the  President  had  done  his  whole  duty  by  them.  Especially  is 
this  true  in  view  of  the  consideration,  which  so  largely  affected 
the  course  of  Congress,  that  the  "  loyal "  population  of  the  dis- 
tricts in  question  consisted  mainly  of  those  who  had  no  slaves 
to  lose.  There  were  exceptions,  many  and  honorable ;  but,  as 
a  general  rule,  wherever  one  found  a  slaveholder,  in  those  days, 
he  found  a  person  whose  heart,  if  not  his  open  deeds,  were 
with  the  Southern  Confederacy. 


DARE  DATS.  371 


CHAPTEK  XLYI. 

DARK   DAYS. 

A  Tax  Payable  in  Men — The  New  Financial  System — The  States  and  the 
Nation — Reconstruction  Begun — A  Flood  of  Calumny — Freedom  of 
Speech  and  of  the  Press — A  Sarcastic  Present  to  the  Confederacy — 
Opposition  Taking  Form  at  the  North. 

THE  results  of  the  fall  elections  had  been  sufficiently  un- 
favorable to  warn  so  experienced  and  shrewd  a  political  man- 
ager as  Mr.  Lincoln.  It  was  manifestly  needful  that  the  North 
should  be  reorganized  for  war  purposes  as  completely  as  any 
army  at  the  end  of  an  exhausting  campaign.  He  had  already 
prepared  for  the  work,  and  a  host  of  busy  and  eager  hands 
were  co-operating  with  him.  The  Union  League  was  spread- 
ing fast  and  wide.  It  had  already  accomplished  excellent  re- 
sults, and  promised  still  better  things  in  the  future.  The  sus- 
pension of  the  Writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  had  given  a  stern  and 
ominous  suggestion  to  the  more  noisy  malcontents ;  but  a  meas- 
ure was  now  preparing  which  was  to  fall  with  terrific  force 
upon  them  and  their  supporters. 

No  other  request  made  by  Mr.  Lincoln  of  Congress  for  any 
legislation  at  any  time  was  ever  met  with  so  intense  and  bitter 
a  partisan  opposition  as  that  which  was  overcome  in  the  passage 
of  the  "  Draft  Act."  By  this  law  the  entire  "  militia"  of  the 
country,  up  to  that  time  in  the  several  control  of  the  States  as 
such,  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Federal  Government,  as  a 
general  fund  of  fighting  humanity.  It  was  to  be  enrolled 
under  rigid  provisions  that  swept  in  the  whole  population  sup- 
posed to  be  capable  of  carrying  arms.  It  was  to  be  drawn 
rata,  at  the  will  of  the  Executive,  subject  only  to  the 


372  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

forms  prescribed  by  the  law,  and  without  any  reference  what- 
ever to  the  political  opinions  of  the  human  beings  drawn  or  to 
their  readiness  to  die  for  their  country.  Those  who  were 
thoroughly  willing  and  ready  were  so  nearly  all  in  the  field,  at 
that  date,  that  the  "  draft"  was  sure  to  draw  upon  the  luke- 
warm, the  timid,  the  unwilling,  the  men  bound  by  home  ties 
and  business  cares ;  and  the  law  contained  no  clause  exempting 
even  the  bitterest  enemy  of  the  Administration  or  the  most 
profound  admirer  of  human  slavery  and  of  peace-at-any-price. 

That  such  a  law,  enforced  in  such  a  manner,  would  work 
great  hardships  in  multitudes  of  cases  was  not  to  be  denied, 
although  the  Act  had  been  carefully  framed  to  provide  for 
these  as  well  as  might  be.  The  power  placed  in  the  hands  of 
the  President  was  enormous,  but,  in  order  to  make  it  effective, 
sundry  other  measures  were  necessary,  of  an  entirely  different 
character. 

During  Mr.  Lincoln's  long  experience  in  the  Illinois  Legis- 
lature, and  as  a  member  of  the  "  Long  Nine"  in  that  body  and 
*  an  ambitious  imitator  of  De  Witt  Clinton,  he  had  been  made 
to  pass  a  laborious  apprenticeship  and  course  of  study  in  all 
matters  of  State  debt,  National  debt,  banks  both  State  and  Na- 
tional; bank-notes,  bankruptcies,  credit  and  losses  of  credit. 
He  was  well  trained  and  prepared  to  join  with  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  Mr.  Chase,  in  devising  the  ways  and  means 
for  revolutionizing  the  finances  of  the  country. 

They  were  sadly  in  need  of  a  most  sweeping  revolution ;  and 
it  came.  The  long  Congressional  debates  could  have  but  one 
termination  so  far  as  the  gross  amounts  of  money  to  be  raised 
were  concerned,  and  the  sums  tendered  to  the  Administration 
were  imposingly  colossal.  Nine  hundred  millions  of  six-per- 
cent-interest bonds  were  authorized  to  be  printed  and  sold — to 
somebody.  Four  hundred  millions  of  Treasury  notes  bearing 
interest  were  authorized  to  be  printed  and  used  as  money. 
One  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  Treasury  notes  without  in- 
terest were  also  authorized ;  and  there  is  a  curious  suggestion 


DARK  DAYS.  373 

of  the  politician  rather  than  the  banker  in  the  simultaneous 
offering  of  the  two  kinds  of  circulating  medium  side  by  side. 
The  first  kind  remained  in  circulation  until  it  had  earned  a  few 
cents'  worth  of  interest,  and  then  it  did  not  circulate  any  more. 
Still  it  helped  pay  contractors  and  soldiers,  and  that  was  the 
main  thing  in  those  days. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  favorite,  of  all  the  financial  schemes  pushed  to 
conclusion  by  this  Congress,  was  the  National-Bank  Act.  He 
advocated  it  in  his  message  to  Congress  and  in  private  conver- 
sations with  his  friends.  It  met  so  strong  an  opposition  on  the 
floors  of  House  and  Senate,  from  the  friends  of  the  existing 
State-bank  systems  and  from  what  yet  remained  of  the  old- 
time  enmity  to  a  National  Bank  of  any  kind,  that  its  fate 
seemed  more  than  doubtful  for  a  time.  Its  possible  failure 
was  regarded  by  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  greater  disaster  than  a  defeat 
of  the  Union  arms  in  the  field.  At  the  same  time  a  growing 
jealousy  of  Executive  interference  was  strong  in  either  House, 
and  there  were  limits  beyond  which  even  Mr.  Lincoln  could 
not  safely  venture.  He  did  venture  to  the  very  verge,  never- 
theless, and  the  narrow  margin  of  a  majority  by  which  the  Act 
was  finally  passed  was  obtained  so  directly  by  his  personal 
efforts,  unobtrusively  as  these  were  made,  that  the  National- 
Bank  system  owes  to  him  individually  its  existence  and  its  use- 
fulness. 

This  done,  a  secure  market  was  obtained  for  a  vast  mass  of 
the  authorized  "  bonds,"  and  it  was  not  long  before  every  paper 
dollar  in  the  pocket  of  every  man  throughout  the  country 
bound  him  to  sustain  the  credit  and  solvency  of  the  National 
Government.  The  base  upon  which  the  Administration  stood 
was  suddenly  and  enormously  widened. 

Through  the  entire  course  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  public  acts  and 
utterances,  from  a  time  long  before  the  war,  can  be  clearly 
traced  his  personal  conviction,  slowly  growing  into  definite 
form  and  ripeness,  that  the  nation  as  a  whole,  and  the  now 
seceded  States  in  particular,  required  an  intelligent  rebuilding. 


374  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

At  this  day,  looking  back,  the  most  shallow  student  of  political 
history  has  little  difficulty  in  pointing  out  the  manifest  differ- 
ences between  the  organism  now  known  as  "  The  United 
States"  and  the  loose,  vague,  unhooped,  uncemented  structure 
which  down  to  the  year  1860  bore  the  same  title  upon  all 
maps  of  the  world. 

Something  analogous  to  pulling  down  preceded  rebuilding, 
even  at  the  North.  Here,  however,  the  work  of  renewal  had 
proceeded  rapidly.  The  practical  relations  of  State  govern- 
ments to  the  central  authority  had  been  discovered  or  created 
and  were  daily  becoming  better  and  better  defined,  through 
processes  so  sharp  and  searching  that  their  results  were  likely 
to  be  permanent  and  unquestionable.  The  several  conditions 
of  the  border  slave-States  had  been  even  more  entirely  revolu- 
tionized, and  the  legislation  procured  by  Mr.  Lincoln  of  this 
Congress  set  the  seal  of  perpetuity  upon  their  renewed  exist- 
ence. During  this  session  of  it,  moreover,  the  first  wedge  was 
driven  home  into  the  seemingly  solid  mass  of  the  Confederacy, 
and  no  power  could  afterwards  withdraw  it.  The  old  State  of 
Virginia  was  permanently  divided  by  the  admission  to  the 
Union,  as  an  independent  State,  of  what  is  now  "West  Virginia. 
Two  representatives  were  also  seated  in  the  House  from  the 
occupied  districts  of  Louisiana.  The  Confederate  authorities 
were  again  duly  notified  of  the  fundamental  principle  upon 
which  the  repression  of  the  Eebellion  was  to  be  carried  on : 
that  every  Congressional  district  securely  redeemed  from  their 
grasp  was  to  return  at  once,  if  it  would,  to  the  performance  of 
its  functions  as  a  part  of  the  national  body,  and  that  the  Gov- 
ernment knew  nothing  of  "  States"  as  members  of  a  foreign 
confederacy.  It  acknowledged  the  existence  of  a  sedition,  a 
riot,  a  conspiracy,  a  powerful  organization  of  armed  disturbers 
of  the  peace  of  the  Commonwealth,  but  it  recognized  nothing 
more  respectable. 

There  was  no  other  political  subject  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
took  a  more  active  interest,  from  first  to  last,  than  he  did  in 


DARK  DATS.  375 

that  of  "  reconstruction."  There  were  many,  at  a  later  day, 
who  accused  him  of  even  undue  haste  in  his  eagerness  to  obtain 
the  restoration  of  local  civil  governments  in  every  part  of  the 
territory  conquered. 

The  natural  reaction  of  public  feeling  at  the  North  had  been 
plainly  indicated  even  before  the  fall  elections  of  1862,  and 
found  a  stronger  expression  in  them.  It  was  well  represented 
upon  the  floor  of  Congress  throughout  the  winter.  The  com- 
pletion of  the  act  of  Emancipation,  on  the  first  day  of  the  new 
year,  the  entire  course  and  character  of  the  legislation  proposed 
or  accomplished,  as  well  as  the  outlines  and  particulars  of  the 
military  situation,  were  so  successfully  misrepresented  by  the 
Opposition  press,  and  so  mischievously  misunderstood  by  large 
masses  of  the  people,  as  to  greatly  increase  the  general  discon- 
tent and  strengthen  the  hands  of  all  enemies  of  the  Adminis- 
tration. 

The  spring  of  1863  found  the  President  well  supplied  with 
financial  resources  and  expedients,  and  with  formulated  powers 
for  suppressing  sedition  and  for  keeping  up  the  armies  in  the 
field.  It  must  be  said,  however,  and  it  was  well  understood  by 
himself,  that  not  at  any  other  time,  before  or  afterwards,  was 
Mr.  Lincoln's  hold  upon  the  popular  confidence  and  affection 
so  weak,  so  very  nearly  broken. 

The  strongest  and  most  widely  read  journals  of  his  own 
political  party  were  freely  and  even  bitterly  criticising  his 
management  of  the  war.  All  blows  fell  most  heavily  upon 
him,  but  not  a  member  of  his  Cabinet  escaped  aspersion.  His 
very  family  was  attacked,  in  public  and  in  private,  by  the  most 
vile  and  cowardly  calumny.  ~Not  a  few  bitter  tongues  roundly 
asserted  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  herself  was  in  constant  correspond- 
ence, as  a  spy,  with  the  chiefs  of  the  Kebellion.  Through  her 
they  obtained  the  secrets  of  the  Cabinet  and  the  plans  of  gen- 
erals in  the  field.  The  insanity  of  the  accusation  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  considered.  It  was  of  no  avail  that  she  was  as 
ignorant  of  Cabinet  matters  as  if  she  had  been  in  Maine,  and 


376  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

that  she  did  not  see  enough  of  her  husband  to  ask  his  over- 
weary brain  a  question  of  the  war.  It  was  equally  unimpor- 
tant, though  strictly  true,  that  she  refused  to  open  her  own 
private  letters,  and  insisted  that  all  which  came  to  her  through 
the  mails  should  first  be  opened  by  one  of  the  President's  private 
secretaries.  The  absurd  and  wicked  slander  refused  to  die,  and 
it  is  barely  possible  that  some  obtuse  or  ignorant  people  accept 
it  as  truth  to  this  very  day.  It  probably  annoyed  her  much 
more  than  it  did  Mr.  Lincoln,  but  it  serves  now  as  a  gauge  of 
the  bitterness  and  unreason  with  which  both  men  and  women 
assailed  the  President.  It  also  indicates  the  bewildered  state 
of  mind  with  which  they  sought  to  account  for  the  continued 
existence  of  the  Rebellion.  They  were  willing  to  dig  for  the 
secret  in  dark  corners,  and  to  find  it  in  the  alleged  defects  and 
misconducts  of  Union  statesmen  and  generals  rather  than  to 
see  it  in  the  very  magnitude  of  the  task  these  men  and  their 
leader  were  so  heroically  performing.  Even  patriotic  and 
hopeful  men  seemed  unable  to  comprehend  how  large  a  part 
of  that  task  had  already  been  performed,  or  how  well ;  while  the 
unpatriotic  and  the  desponding  openly  asserted  that  nothing 
had  yet  been  done  but  to  place  the  nation,  bound  hand  and 
foot,  in  the  grasping  hands  of  a  despotic  and  blundering  Dic- 
tator. 

The  conductors  of  the  loyal  press  were  not  any  too  con- 
siderate of  the  effect  of  such  words  as  they  saw  fit  to  pen  from 
day  to  day.  There  were  few  who  showed  any  intelligent  ap- 
preciation of  the  fact  that  these  persistent  attacks  upon  the 
Administration  were  weakening  the  armies  in  the  field  and 
giving  the  most  valuable  aid  and  comfort  to  the  public  enemy. 

No  similar  state  of  affairs  was  permitted  to  cripple  the  ener- 
gies of  the  Jefferson  Davis  government.  No  European  autoc- 
racy holds  or  ever  held  its  subject  populations  in  the  crushing 
grasp  of  a  more  rigid  military  system  than  had  by  this  time 
been  perfected  at  the  South.  The  entire  human  life  within 
the  limits  of  the  Rebellion  had  been  dragooned  into  an  efficient 


DARK  DATS.  377 

political  unit.  No  careless  utterances  of  individual  opinion, 
opposed  to  the  cause  of  Secession,  were  tolerated  in  public  or 
in  private.  Such  a  thing  as  an  organized  and  formally  repre- 
sented opposition  was  unknown.  The  rope,  the  bullet,  or  the 
prison  took  the  places  of  all  other  arguments  in  answering 
hostile  or  too-critical  tongues  and  pens.  As  a  consequence, 
the  amount  of  general  information  in  circulation  among  the 
people  was  regulated  and  controllable,  and  the  Confederacy 
was  what  is  called  "  unanimous"  on  all  questions  relating  to 
the  war. 

The  accomplishment  of  such  an  unanimity  as  that  formed 
no  part  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  necessities  or  plans  at  any  time.  In 
the  very  darkest  hours  of  the  year  1863,  his  severities  were  of 
a  kind  which  endangered  no  lif e  and  very  little  liberty.  Even 
atrocious  license,  masquerading  as  "  liberty,"  was  but  slightly 
and  exceptionally  interfered  with. 

"With  reference  to  this,  it  was  really  needful  that  something 
should  be  done,  over  and  above  notifying  friendly  journals  not 
to  print,  for  the  information  of  the  enemy,  the  plans  and  ar- 
maments of  ships  and  forts  and  camps,  and  the  exact  disposi- 
tion and  condition  and  intentions  of  the  forces  and  commanders. 
Journalistic  enterprise  had  led  them  in  several  instances  to  do 
this  very  thing,  and  its  prohibition  was  sorely  grumbled  at, 
as  an  invasion  of  the  freedom  of  the  press.  A  more  rigid 
censorship  was  rendered  unnecessary  by  the  general  inaccuracy 
of  most  of  these  reports  and  a  shrewd  desire  that  the  Rebel 
generals  might  accept  them  as  guides. 

Something  had  to  be  done,  indeed,  with  the  more  noisy 
politicians,  and  it  was  difficult  to  see  what  or  how,  until  a  curi- 
ous but  sufficient  "  test  case"  was  supplied  by  the  treasonable 
folly  of  one  weak  man,  with  prominence  enough  to  make  him 
very  useful.  A  member  of  Congress  from  Ohio,  named  Cle- 
ment L.  Yallandigham,  a  strong  pro-slavery  Democrat  before 
the  war,  had,  since  its  outbreak,  earned  distinction  as  the  most 
violent  assailant  of  the  Administration  and  its  measures  that 


378  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

could  be  pointed  out.  It  was  his  pride  to  be  somewhat  more 
of  a  Rebel  than  if  he  had  been  in  command  of  a  Confederate 
regiment.  Up  to  the  spring  of  1863,  he  had  been  permitted 
to  talk  as  he  would,  for  the  good  reason  that  he  had  no  follow- 
ing worth  mentioning,  and  that  he  served  admirably  as  a  per- 
petual witness  that  the  Government  did  not  interfere  with  the 
freedom  of  speech.  He  was  now  to  serve  an  equally  important 
use  of  another  kind.  After  doing  his  best  for  the  Rebellion 
all  the  winter,  upon  the  floor  of  Congress,  he  went  home  to 
Ohio  and  began  a  series  of  public  addresses  in  which  he  sur- 
passed all  previous  exhibitions  of  partisan  malice  and  vitupera- 
tive capacity. 

General  Burnside  was  then  in  command  of  the  Department 
of  the  Ohio,  and  his  patriotism  was  of  the  most  sterling  quality. 
He  had  issued  an  order  setting  forth  that  all  persons  found 
within  the  Union  army  lines  who  should  commit  acts  for  the 
benefit  of  the  enemy  would  be  tried  as  spies  or  as  traitors,  and, 
if  convicted,  would  be  put  to  death. 

This  order  plainly  included  such  traitors  as  Yallandigham ; 
and  he  not  only  publicly  denounced  it  on  the  stump,  but 
urged  the  people  to  forcibly  resist  its  execution.  The  military 
"  order  of  arrest,"  which  he  in  this  manner  courted  and  asked 
for,  was  issued  by  General  Burnside  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 
the  orator  was  locked  up.  The  next  day,  May  5, 1863,  an  appli- 
cation for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  in  his  case,  was  made  to  the 
United  States  Circuit  Court.  It  was  a  fine  opportunity  to  test 
the  Constitutionality  and  effect  of  the  President's  suspension 
of  the  writ,  as  well  as  the  authority  of  the  Commander-in-Chief 
to  protect  the  rear  of  his  army. 

The  presiding  judge,  himself  a  lifelong  Democrat,  politically, 
listened  to  a  long  argument  from  the  prisoner's  counsel ;  but  he 
sternly  refused  the  writ,  stating  the  law  of  the  matter  in  a 
form  which  made  his  decision  invaluable  to  the  Government. 
He  said :  "  The  legality  of  the  arrest  depends  upon  the  necessity 
for  making  it,  and  that  is  to  be  determined  by  the  military 


DARK  DATS.  379 

commander."  He  added  a  good  deal  of  outspoken  patriotism 
and  common-sense  to  his  "  law,"  and  the  subject  of  arbitrary 
arrests  was  cleared  of  a  great  part  of  the  rubbish  which  had 
been  heaped  around  it.  Yallandigham  was  tried  at  once  by 
court-martial,  and  was  sentenced  to  be  confined  in  some  fort- 
ress. General  Burnside  approved  the  finding  of  the  court  and 
named  Fort  Warren  as  the  place  of  punishment.  But  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  not  disposed  to  throw  away  his  opportune  "  ex- 
ample" in  that  manner.  He  could  express,  through  him,  his 
hearty  contempt  for  the  class  of  demagogues  Vallandigham  so 
perfectly  represented.  A  broad  smile  swept  across  the  face  of 
the  North,  and  a  subdued  chuckle  went  through  the  people 
and  the  army  and  was  heard  even  at  the  South,  when  the  sen- 
tence of  the  culprit  was  read  in  the  newspapers. 

The  President  modified  the  imprisonment  in  Fort  Warren 
to  an  imprisonment  within  the  Rebel  lines,  and  sent  the  convict 
down  South,  with  a  warning  not  to  return  until  after  the  war. 

There  was  a  touch  of  humor  in  it,  but  it  was  the  most  biting 
sarcasm  ever  penned  by  Abraham  Lincoln.  Well  might  the 
South  grumble  that  it  was  no  sort  of  "  Botany  Bay,"  and  had 
no  use  for  that  kind  of  immigration.  The  sentence  worked  a 
world  of  good  at  the  North.  A  host  of  mere  talking  men  felt 
that  the  blow  was  aimed  at  them.  Quarters  in  Federal  prisons 
could  be  given  to  but  few.  From  such  places  there  might  be 
means  of  possible  escape.  There  would,  at  least,  be  food  and 
raiment  there,  and  safe  shelter ;  but  who  could  guess  what  hor- 
rors might  await  a  poor  Northern  traitor  "  beyond  the  army 
lines"  ?  The  people  of  the  South,  themselves,  were  suspected 
of  having  strong  notions,  here  and  there,  of  a  man's  duty  to 
"  go  with  his  State,  side  with  his  section,  and  stand  by  his  own 
people,"  and  Southern  hospitality  might  curl  its  haughty  lip  a 
little  at  the  Northern  renegade  sent  down  to  help  eat  the 
scanty  rations  of  its  soldiery. 

Vallandigham  got  around  into  Ohio  again,  before  the  end  of 
the  war ;  but  he  had  served  all  the  uses  that  could  be  made  of 


380  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

him,  and  no  further  notoriety  was  forced  upon  him  by  the 
Government.  Even  after  his  expulsion,  however,  his  remarka- 
ble usefulness  continued  for  a  season.  His  case  and  conviction, 
and  the  shiver  of  dread  caused  thereby  to  all  similar  offenders, 
drew  the  more  virulent  elements  of  the  Opposition  together, 
forced  them  to  take  public  action,  and  so  enabled  Mr.  Lincoln 
to  answer  them  before  the  people,  as  he  could  not  otherwise 
have  done.  Public  meetings  were  at  once  held,  in  the  larger 
cities,  for  general  purposes  of  denunciation  of  the  "  Lincoln 
despotism."  These  meetings  answered  well  as  safety-valves, 
and  also  to  convince  the  nation  that  there  was  really  no  inter- 
ference with  freedom  of  speech.  Great  men  and  small  men, 
alike,  expressed  themselves  from  these  platforms  very  much 
as  the  transported  Ohio  scapegoat  had  expressed  himself  from 
his  platforms,  and  no  hand  of  Executive  tyranny  was  laid  upon 
them.  The  meetings  were  largely  and  noisily  attended,  and 
their  managers,  without  any  such  intention,  afforded  Mr.  Lin- 
coln the  means  of  measuring,  with  fair  accuracy,  the  extent, 
nature,  and  capacities  of  the  disaffection. 

A  month  after  Yallandigham  had  been  bundled  across  the 
army  lines  and  received  by  "  his  own,"  the  Democratic  State 
Convention  of  Ohio,  representing  the  disloyal  elements  of  that 
State,  nominated  him  for  Governor  of  the  State,  and  his  law- 
counsel  for  Lieutenant-Governor.  They  also  did  Mr.  Lincoln 
the  favor  to  send  a  delegation  to  him  at  Washington,  to  pre- 
sent their  view  of  the  case. 

They  did  very  rightly.  They  were  by  no  means  bad  men. 
Their  action,  at  that  very  hour,  although  they  knew  it  not, 
was  a  marvellous  expression  of  their  personal  confidence  in  the 
integrity  of  the  President.  They  did  not  know,  either,  how 
glad  he  was  of  the  opportunity  they  thus  gave  him  to  tell  the 
whole  country,  in  his  answer  to  their  address  :  "  Your  attitude, 
therefore,  encourages  desertion,  resistance  to  the  Draft,  and  the 
like,  because  it  teaches  those  who  incline  to  desert  and  to  es- 
cape the  draft  to  believe  it  is  your  purpose  to  protect  them." 


DARK  DATS.  381 

To  the  utterances  of  a  great  meeting  held  at  Albany,  New 
York,  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a  more  elaborate  reply.  It  was  a 
peculiarly  representative  assemblage,  and  gave  him  an  oppor- 
tunity to  explain  to  the  whole  people  why  he  had  pursued  so 
lenient  a  policy  from  the  beginning,  and  why  he  had  waited 
for  the  commission  of  actual  crime,  by  any  and  every  indi- 
vidual, before  employing  the  strong  hand  of  the  law.  It  also 
enabled  him  to  ask,  of  both  friends  and  foes,  the  practical 
question : 

"  Must  I  shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier-boy  who  deserts, 
while  I  must  not  tonch  a  hair  of  the  wily  agitator  who  induces 
him  to  desert  ?  I  think  that,  in  such  a  case,  to  silence  the  agi- 
tator and  save  the  boy  is  not  only  constitutional,  but  withal  a 
great  mercy." 

There  was  wind  enough  stirring  to  blow  away  a  great  deal 
of  unwholesome  fog.  By  the  time  all  the  speeches  had  been 
made  and  all  the  editorials  had  been  printed,  the  people  had 
read  and  digested  the  President's  replies.  They  had  also 
chuckled  grimly  over  "  Yallandigham  in  Dixie,"  and  had  en- 
joyed the  panicky  dismay  of  the  demagogues.  The  beneficial 
effect  was  sure  and  rapid,  and  a  great  revulsion  of  popular 
.  f  eeling  set  strongly  in. 

The  dark  days  were  by  no  means  shortened.  There  was 
more  trouble  to  come.  Nevertheless,  the  President  discerned 
that  he  could  safely  employ  the  exceptional  powers  placed  in 
his  hands,  and  that  all  the  people  would  sustain  him.  The 
great  military  events  of  the  year,  in  due  season,  completed  the 
work  so  well  begun,  and,  when  her  next  State  election  took 
place,  Ohio  declared,  by  the  largest  majority  in  her  political 
history,  that  she  preferred  a  patriot  for  her  governor  and  had, 
like  Mr.  Lincoln,  no  further  use  for  the  kind  of  men  repre- 
sented by  Yallandigham. 


382  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTER  XLYII. 

NIGHT. 

Preparing  for  a  Great  Struggle — Popular  Discontent — Murmurs  of  Sedi- 
tion—  European  Hostilities — Chancellorsville — Bitter  Hours  for  the 
President — Darkness  at  the  South — Statesmen  under  a  Hallucination — 
The  Second  Invasion  of  the  North — Hooker  Succeeded  by  Meade. 

ME.  LINCOLN  did  not  retain  the  external  equanimity  of  his 
earlier  days  under  the  galling  pressure  of  the  burdens  laid  upon 
him  in  1863.  The  goading  irritations  were  too  many,  and  they 
gave  him  no  rest  whatever.  The  path  he  was  forced  to  walk 
in  was  rugged  with  lacerating  difficulties.  To  say  that  he  now 
and  then  gave  way  to  short-lived  fits  of  petulance  is  but  to 
admit  that  he  was  human.  He  was  keenly  conscious  of  every 
deficiency,  in  himself  or  in  his  human  and  other  means  for 
performing  his  vast  undertaking,  and  he  could  not  but  worry 
when  things  went  wrong.  More  than  enough  did  go  wrong,  and 
the  few  admissions  of  harassed  weariness  which  escaped  him  do 
not  deserve  especial  record. 

It  was  well  understood,  through  many  channels  of  informa- 
tion, that  the  Confederacy  was  now  preparing  to  put  forth  its 
full  and  uttermost  strength :  and  this  was  more  than  the  North 
would  or  could  be  induced  to  do.  There  was,  indeed,  a  sort 
of  prophetic  hope  in  the  obvious  fact  that  such  an  exhaustive 
effort  could  never  be  made  more  than  once  by  the  South ;  but 
the  certainty  that  it  was  coming  filled  the  outlook  for  the  mili- 
tary year  with  promises  of  bloodshed,  and  these  were  speedily 
and  terribly  fulfilled.  Mr.  Lincoln  read  all  these  signs  and 
promises,  and  knew  their  meaning  perfectly.  He  saw  and  he 
felt  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  men  he  was  drawing  into  the 


NIGHT.  383 

army  from  their  homes  and  workshops  were  to  be  sent,  by  his 
orders,  to  certain  and  sudden  death ;  and  he  was  not  the  man 
to  put  from  him  carelessly  any  of  the  solemn  questions  asked 
of  him  by  such  a  responsibility. 

The  cares  heaped  upon  the  President  by  the  demands  and 
perils  of  the  military  situation  were  made  heavier  by  the  aspect 
of  affairs  in  several  of  the  loyal  States.  The  murmurs  of  the 
opponents  of  the  Draft  grew  louder  daily,  as  the  machinery  for 
its  enforcement  assumed  forms  which  men  could  see.  It  was 
something  new  and  strange  and  horrible,  even  to  the  minds  of 
many  who  were  genuinely  patriotic ;  for  it  was  a  sort  of  re- 
morseless and  unavoidable  "  direct  tax"  which  could  only  be 
paid,  in  person  or  by  substitute,  with  the  bodies  of  living  men. 

There  were  yet  other  omens  of  possible  disaster.  More  em- 
phatic than  ever  came  continual  assurances  from  abroad, 
official,  unofficial,  and  journalistic,  that  the  sympathies  of  the 
great  commercial  powers  and  controlling  aristocracies  of  Europe 
were  strongly  with  the  Confederacy.  The  sympathies  of  the 
French  Imperial  Government  assumed  their  most  offensive 
form  in  the  disastrous  history  of  its  Mexican  expedition,  and 
the  foregone  failure  of  this  was  a  significant  prophecy  of  the 
subsequent  events  by  means  of  which  the  French  people  re- 
gained self-government.  Popular  good-will  in  France  for  the 
American  Republic  was  without  any  means  for  making  itself 
heard  or  felt  in  the  year  1863. 

The  "  Southern"  sympathies  of  that  part  of  the  English  na- 
tion affected  by  such  leanings  were  made  to  be  very  deeply 
felt  by  the  American  people.  We  were  assailed  by  them,  and 
in  the  most  hurtful  modes,  by  land  and  sea.  On  the  sea,  by 
the  continuous  and  often  successful  efforts  of  British  blockade- 
runners  to  enter  or  leave  the  Southern  ports,  and  by  the  ravages 
of  British  cruisers,  like  the  Alabama,  under  the  Confederate 
flag;  on  the  land,  by  the  presence,  on  every  battle-field,  of 
British  arms  and  ammunition  in  rapidly  increasing  supply. 
That  part  of  the  English  nation  whose  heart  and  hope  instinc- 


384  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

tively  clung  to  the  Free  North  and  its  long  struggle  for  Free 
Labor  had  attained  no  other  political  power  than  that  of  suffer- 
ing patiently,  in  the  year  1863. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  caste  feeling  of  a  part  of  the 
German  ruling  classes,  the  Germans  as  a  mass  were  with  the 
North.  They  bought  our  national  "  bonds"  liberally,  at  war- 
time prices,  and  in  due  season  they  reaped  a  golden  harvest  of 
rich  profits  thereby. 

Alone  among  the  great  powers  of  Europe,  Russia  was  firmly 
bound  to  America  by  the  ties  of  a  friendship  which  bore  a 
strict  relation  to  her  undying  hatred  of  France  and  England. 
Her  vivid  memories  of  the  Crimean  War  were  sure  guaranties 
of  her  active  alliance,  in  case  her  old  enemies  should  offer  her 
an  opportunity  to  obtain  satisfaction  for  Sevastopol.  Her 
position  aided  largely  in  checking  any  too  aggressive  an  expres- 
sion of  the  now  half -triumphant  malice  of  her  rivals  who  mistak- 
enly regarded  themselves  as  interested  in  our  political  division 
and  destruction. 

The  State -Department  was  in  good  hands,  and  Mr.  Seward 
could  safely  be  intrusted  with  all  diplomatic  affairs.  The  con- 
dition and  promise  of  the  revenue  and  the  Treasury  seemed 
all  that  could  be  reasonably  expected.  The  Navy  grew  more 
and  more  efficient,  at  sea  and  on  the  Western  rivers.  Secretary 
Stanton  was  accomplishing  marvels  of  genius  and  of  sleepless 
toil  in  the  War  Office,  burning  out  in  faithful  services  the  fiery 
energy  which  led  Mr.  Lincoln  to  select  him  for  that  tremendous 
duty. 

Congress  adjourned  and  its  membership  went  home.  The 
very  air  grew  hot  and  dense  with  expectations  of  a  "  battle- 
summer."  The  army  was  in  fine  condition,  East  and  West. 
The  forces  on  the  line  of  the  Potomac  were  necessarily  some- 
what scattered,  but  they  outnumbered,  two  to  one,  the  forces 
opposed  to  them  under  Lee. 

The  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  still,  to  the  perceptions  of  a 
large  majority  of  the  people,  the  representative  army,  by  the 


NIGHT.  385 

successes  or  failures  of  which  they  measured  the  tides  of  the 
war.  It  was  under  the  command  of  General  Hooker;  and 
the  exact  condition  of  the  President's  mind  in  relation  to  this 
officer  cannot  be  better  expressed  than  by  the  following  letter, 
on  file  in  the  War  Department : 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  January  26,  1863. 

Major- General  Hooker. 

GENERAL  :  I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done  this  upon  what  appear 
to  me  to  be  sufficient  reasons,  and  yet  I  think  it  best  for  you 
to  know  that  there  are  some  things  in  regard  to  which  I  am 
not  quite  satisfied. with  you.  I  believe  you  to  be  a  brave  and 
skillful  soldier,  which,  of  course,  I  like.  I  also  believe  you  do- 
not  mix  politics  with  your  profession,  in  which  you  are  right. 
You  have  confidence  in  yourself,  which  is  a  valuable,  if  not  an 
indispensable,  quality.  You  are  ambitious,  which,  within  rea- 
sonable bounds,  does  good  rather  than  harm.  But  I  think  that, 
during  General  Burnside's  command  of  the  army  you  have 
taken  counsel  of  your  ambitions,  and  thwarted  him  as  much  as 
you  could,  in  which  you  did  a  great  wrong  both  to  the  country 
and  a  most  meritorious  and  honorable  brother-officer.  I  have 
heard,  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your  recently  saying 
that  both  the  Army  and  the  Government  needed  a  dictator.  Of 
course  it  was  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it,  that  I  have  given 
you  a  command.  Only  those  generals  who  gain  success  can 
set  up  as  dictators.  "What  I  ask  of  you  is  military  success,  and 
I  will  risk  the  dictatorship.  The  Government  will  support  you 
to  the  utmost  of  its  ability,  which  is  neither  more  nor  less  than 
it  has  done  and  will  do  for  all  commanders.  I  much  fear  that 
the  spirit  you  have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of  criticising 
their  commander  and  withholding  confidence  from  him,  will 
now  turn  upon  you.  I  shall  assist  you,  as  far  as  I  can,  to  put 
it  down.  Neither  you  nor  Napoleon,  if  he  were  alive  again, 


386  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

could  get  any  good  out  of  an  army  while  such  a  spirit  prevails 
in  it. 

And  now,  beware  of  rashness !  Beware  of  rashness !  But 
with  energy  and  sleepless  vigilance  go  forward  and  give  us 
victories.  Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 

General  Hooker  had  succeeded  in  winning  the  good-will  and 
confidence  of  his  men,  but  that  was  all  he  was  destined  to  win. 
Leaving  to  professional  military  critics  all  discussion  of  the 
exact  strategic  methods  employed  or  omitted,  it  is  enough  to 
state  the  facts  as  follows : 

During  the  first  week  in  May,  1863,  General  Hooker  so 
handled  several  of  his  best  army  corps,  in  what  is  known  as  the 
Battle  of  Chancellorsville,  that  the  net  result  to  them  was  a 
severe  defeat.  The  obstinacy  of  the  fighting  and  the  generally 
good  conduct  of  the  forces  engaged  appears  from  the  official 
statements  of  losses  on  both  sides.  The  Confederate  com- 
mander admits  a  total  loss  of  13,019,  and  the  Union  general  of 
17,197,  and,  with  these,  of  the  battle-ground. 

Mr.  Lincoln  might  well  walk  the  floor  of  his  room,  late  into 
ihe  night,  after  receiving  the  news  of  this  disaster.  One  of  his 
private  secretaries  was  detained  by  unusual  pressure  of  clerical 
work  in  an  adjoining  room.  Midnight  came ;  one  o'clock ;  two 
o'clock  ;  and  when,  a  half -hour  later,  the  young  man  paused  at 
the  head  of  the  stairs,  before  creeping  silently  out  to  go  to  his 
own  residence,  the  last  sounds  he  heard  were  the  slow  and  heavy 
footfalls  of  the  all  but  heart-broken  ruler.  So  many  more 
fathers  and  mothers  were  looking  towards  him,  reproachfully, 
between  their  sobs  for  their  sons.  So  many  more  widows  were 
mourning  for  their  husbands  and  wondering  whether  their 
heartache  need  have  come  to  them  if  Mr.  Lincoln  had  done,  or 
had  not  done,  something, — they  knew  not  what.  He  knew 
that  the  news  would  stimulate  the  hatred  in  Europe  and 
strengthen  all  the  disaffection  at  the  North.  Even  loyal 


NIGHT.  387 

enthusiasts  would  be  deterred  from  enlisting.  The  Draft 
would  be  denounced  more  bitterly  than  ever,  as  a  means  of 
dragging  helpless  and  unwilling  men  into  a  shambles  of  useless 
butchery. 

Other  men,  in  distant  corners  of  the  country,  could  not  under- 
stand, as  did  the  President,  that  such  a  victory  as  that  of  Chan- 
cellorsville,  won  at  so  great  a  cost  to  the  South,  was,  in  its  true 
and  final  effect,  a  damaging  blow  to  the  Southern  cause.  They 
overlooked  the  simple  arithmetic  of  the  matter  and  refused  to 
see  how  hardly  General  Lee  could  spare  the  men  he  had  lost, 
and  that  a  very  few  such  fights  would  leave  the  Rebellion  with- 
out an  army.  If  General  Lee's  own  records  are  to  be  trusted, 
nearly  a  fourth  part  of  his  movable  strength  was  temporarily 
or  permanently  destroyed,  while  the  Union  loss,  relatively,  was 
but  fifteen  per  cent,  instead  of  twenty-five.  One  bitter  com- 
plaint made  against  General  Hooker,  indeed,  was  that  he  had 
not  employed  his  men  and  had  kept  37,000  of  them  out  of  the 
fight  although  they  were  near  enough  to  have  turned  the  defeat 
into  a  victory  for  him  had  he  but  set  them  free.  With  excel- 
lent show  of  reason  could  Mr.  Lincoln  urge,  as  he  speedily  did, 
that  another  battle  should  be  sought  and  fought  before  the 
enemy  should  be  given  time  to  recuperate.  He  urged  in  vain. 
There  was  a  man  then  in  training  for  him,  in  the  "West,  who  had 
learned  that  precise  lesson  of  the  stern  arithmetic  of  war :  but 
Grant  had  not  arrived,  in  1863,  and  it  seemed  impossible  for  the 
President  to  enforce  his  conviction  of  the  truth  upon  the  mind 
of  any  commander  he  had  as  yet  discovered.  All  the  apparent 
evils  of  the  defeat  were  therefore  permitted  to  remain,  and 
Secretary  Stanton  himself  is  reported  to  have  declared  that 
the  darkest  hour  of  the  whole  war  was  just  after  Chancellors-, 
ville. 

The  dark  days  of  the  year  1863  were  not  dark  for  the  North 
alone.  There  was  trouble  in  the  councils  of  the  Confederacy 
also  ;  and  with  it  came  at  times  a  sickening  consciousness  of 
failing  strength.  The  course  of  military  events  had  not  by  any 


388  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

means  been  uniformly  favorable  to  the  South.  After  a  series 
of  bloody  engagements,  one  of  their  best  armies  was  cooped  up  in 
Yicksburg  by  General  Grant,  and  there  seemed  to  be  but  small 
hope  that  his  hold  upon  it  could  be  broken.  Throughout  the 
West  the  Union  lines  were  steadily  drifting  Southerly.  Not  a 
man  could  the  Rebellion  spare  to  its  "Western  generals  from  its 
resources  in  the  East,  for  here  every  effort  was  making  to  re- 
enforce  General  Lee.  Unbounded  confidence  was  reposed  in 
him,  but  it  was  becoming  painfully  evident  that  he  must  do 
something  much  more  productive  of  results  than  the  costly 
winning  of  even  such  victories  as  that  of  Chancellorsville. 

General  Hooker  was  still  in  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  and  the  opposing  forces  watched  each  other  zealous- 
ly. A  fierce  battle  of  mutual  interrogation  as  to  position  and 
purposes  was  fought  at  Brandy  Station  in  the  second  week  of 
June,  but  no  general  engagement  was  obtained,  for  various  good 
reasons.  The  chief  of  these  was,  probably,  that  General  Lee 
did  not  desire  one.  He  was  making  all  things  ready  for  a 
second  invasion  of  the  North,  and  more  fighting  on  Southern 
ground,  just  then,  would  but  have  wasted  his  war  material. 

That  Lee  should  make  such  a  Northward  movement  at  all 
was  both  a  dire  necessity  and  a  fatal  blunder.  It  is  not  alto- 
gether fair  to  place  either  of  these  upon  the  shoulders  of  so 
good  a  general.  The  great  error  of  the  Confederate  statesmen 
concerning  the  state  of  public  opinion  and  feeling,  as  well  as 
of  material  prosperity,  at  the  North,  is  by  no  means  easy  to 
understand  when  their  general  shrewdness  and  ability-are  taken 
into  consideration.  They  should  have  known  their  country 
and  countrymen  better  than  they  did.  The  national  resources 
of  the  North,  always  vastly  greater  than  those  of  the  South, 
had  not  been  perceptibly  impaired,  and  no  acre  of  its  area  had 
been  either  devastated  or  rent  away.  As  to  its  population,  the 
out-and-out  Yallandighams  among  them  were  not  fighting  men, 
by  any  means,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  contemptuously  illustrated  when 
he  sent  that  person  through  the  lines.  Lee  was  quite  welcome 


NIGHT.  389 

to  them  all,  if  lie  had  any  use  for  them.  They  were,  for  the 
greater  part,  mere  political  demagogues,  who  talked  themselves 
into  disreputable  notoriety,  while  all  the  good  and  strong  men 
of  their  own  "  Democratic"  party  rallied  like  heroes  around  the 
flag  of  their  country.  The  demagogues  had  now,  indeed,  been 
able  to  take  advantage  of  a  sore-hearted  and  weary  multitude  ; 
but  experienced  political  leaders,  like  Jefferson  Davis  and  his 
counselors,  should  have  understood,  without  being  told,  that 
the  multitudes  were  loyal  and  true  to  their  government,  at  the 
bottom  of  all  their  grumbling.  The  discontented  elements  at 
the  North  could  not  be  handled,  even  in  the  accustomed  form 
of  a  political  party,  without  the  name  of  a  favorite  Union  gen- 
eral, McClellan,  at  their  head.  They  must  be  able  to  assure 
themselves  and  everybody  else  that  they  wanted  only  a  more 
vigorous  and  successful  management  of  the  war  and,  perhaps, 
a  little  less  of  Abolitionism.  All  Northern  murmurs  were 
heard  by  Southern  political  and  military  managers  as  conveyed 
to  them  by  their  spies  and  correspondents,  or  as  expressed  in 
wild  exaggeration  by  "  Copperhead "  editors  of  newspapers. 
The  rabid  utterances  of  demagogues,  and  even  the  observa- 
tions of  the  most  cultivated  and  ignorant  foreign  tourists,  were 
sent  South  and  interpreted  as  the  sincere  expressions  of  great 
popular  constituencies.  The  imported  riff-raff  of  great  cities 
was  carefully  cross-examined,  and  its  mouthings  were  studied 
and  duly  reported  as  indicating  the  state  of  mind  of  our  entire 
foreign-born  citizenship. 

It  was  a  direct  result  of  the  hallucination  thus  created  that 
the  ineffable  mistake  of  an  invasion  of  the  North  was  repeated. 
The  best  army  of  the  South  was  sent  across  the  fatal  border 
that  it  might  serve  as  a  nucleus  for  an  anticipated  rising  of  all 
the  friends  of  Secession  according  to  their  varieties.  It  was  a 
splendid  army  of  nearly  ninety  thousand  men,  and  was  fully 
competent  for  the  conquest  propbsed,  so  soon  as  it  should  be 
augmented  by  a  few  hundred  thousands  of  Northern  malcon- 
tents. It  was  mainly  composed  of  trained  veterans,  new  levies 


390  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

being  retained  for  other  duties,  and  it  look  forward  confi- 
dently to  the  career  of  supposed  victories  before  it. 

It  was  not  difficult  for  Lee  to  elude  any  possible  vigilance 
of  Hooker.  A  rapid  dash  by  a  force  thrown  forward  for  the 
purpose  cleared  the  Shenandoah  Yalley  of  Union  troops,  and 
then,  through  the  broad  highway  thus  opened,  General  Lee  was 
pressing  on  to  his  mad  enterprise  before  his  purpose  could  be 
divined. 

This  was  the  culminating  point  of  the  whole  war.  The 
Draft  for  men  had  been  ordered  to  take  place  in  July.  Mur- 
murs of  threatened  resistance  were  ominously  rising  from 
many  localities,  and  it  was  not  difficult  to  connect  the  North- 
ward march  of  Lee  with  possible  conspiracies,  secretly  or- 
ganized and  prepared  for  co-operative  action.  That  such  con- 
spiracies existed  was  beyond  all  doubt,  although  their  extent 
and  power  for  evil  was  unknown.  It  was  now  also  certain 
that  Lee  would  be  in  Pennsylvania  before  a  single  army  corps 
could  be  thrown  across  his  path. 

The  President  called  upon  the  States  of  New  York,  West 
Virginia,  Maryland,  and  Pennsylvania  for  120,000  men,  for 
temporary  use  ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  names  of  these 
four  States  combined  in  such  a  call  by  him.  In  the  excitement 
of  the  moment  the  men  came  fast  enough,  but  it  was  not  so 
easy  to  arm  and  equip  and  make  a  practical  use  of  them.  In 
like  manner,  at  the  same  time,  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  was  calling 
out  every  able-bodied  man  6r  boy  he  could  arm,  to  defend 
Richmond  from  a  counter-attack  the  movement  for  which  had 
been  instantly  ordered  by  Mr.  Lincoln. 

General  Hooker  moved  his  forces  somewhat  leisurely,  and 
the  result  of  a  diversity  of  views  between  him  and  General 
Halleck  was  the  offer  and  acceptance  of  his  resignation  and  the 
appointment  of  General  George  G.  Meade  to  the  command  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 

General  Meade  had  previously  commanded  the  Fifth  Army 
Corps  and  was  an  officer  of  tried  and  acknowledged  ability. 


NIGHT.  391 

He  had  not  attained  then,  nor  did  he  afterwards  establish,  a 
reputation  as  an  exceptionally  great  commander,  but  he  was  in 
all  respects  eminently  capable  and  trustworthy,  and  he  was  less 
of  an  experiment  than  any  previous  chief  of  that  army.  It  never 
had  had  less  need  of  a  great  commander  than  at  that  very  hour. 
The  subordinate  leaders  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  were  now 
become  experienced  generals,  familiar  with  their  coTnTna.Tn.ds 
and  duties,  while  its  veteran  soldiers  were  a  body  of  men  that 
had  but  one  equal  on  earth,  and  that  was  its  old  antagonist, 
the  Army  of  Northern  Virginia,  under  Lee.  No  other  large 
armies  then  in  existence  had  added  to  their  science  and  their 
drill  the  perfecting  processes  of  so  many  hard  marches  and 
fights.  There  was  a  curiously  high  degree  of  mutual  respect 
and  of  emulation  between  those  two  armies,  for  which  each 
had  many  and  most  excellent  reasons. 


392  ABBAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK  XLYHI. 

THE   TURNING   POINT. 

The  Eve  of  Battle — The  Surrender  of  Vicksburg — The  Mississippi  Kiver 
set  Free — The  Three  Days'  Fight  at  Gettysburg — Lee's  Retreat — The 
Situation  Changed  — The  Draft  Riots— The  New  York  Mob— The 
President's  Reply  to  the  Unpatriotic  Elements. 

THE  month  of  June  was  fast  slipping  away,  and  it  began  to 
look  as  if  the  gates  of  the  North  were  at  last  open  to  the  Con- 
federacy. By  the  24th  the  main  body  of  Lee's  army  was  north 
of  the  Potomac.  On  the  27th  two  of  his  army  corps  were  at 
Chambersburg,  well  up  the  Cumberland  Valley,  west  of  the 
mountains,  while  a  third  occupied  Carlisle,  within  striking 
distance  of  Harrisburg,  the  capital  of  Pennsylvania.  General 
Hooker  had  held  his  old  position  opposite  Washington,  with 
his  main  body,  as  late  as  the  23d ;  but  all  doubt  as  to  the  safety 
of  that  city,  for  the  time  being,  was  now  removed,  and  on  the 
25th  he  began  to  cross  the  Potomac  at  Edward's  Ferry.  From 
thence  he  advanced  to  Frederick,  Maryland,  and  halted,  only 
thirty  miles,  as  the  crow  flies,  from  the  battle-field  of  Gettys- 
burg. Here,  on  the  28th,  the  change  of  commanders  took 
place,  and  General  Meade  only  carried  out  a  previously  ex- 
pressed purpose  of  his  predecessor  in  at  once  moving  his 
forces  towards  the  Susquehanna.  Omitting  all  details  of  mili- 
tary movements  as  out  of  place  here,  it  is  enough  to  say  that 
on  the  evening  of  June  30  the  entire  Rebel  army  was  concen- 
trating towards  Gettysburg ;  the  Union  army  lay  within  little 
more  than  a  good  day's  march,  and  both  commanders  were 
fully  aware  that  a  great  and  decisive  battle  could  not  be  long 
delayed. 


THE  TURNING  POINT.  393 

What  was  only  of  a  little  less  importance,  the  entire  country 
was  almost  equally  aware  and  in  waiting.  A  Kebel  force  pene- 
trated within  sight  of  Harrisburg.  The  citizens  of  Philadelphia 
found  themselves  digging  trenches  and  throwing  up  earthworks 
for  the  possible  defence  of  that  city.  The  Governor  of  Penn- 
sylvania called  for  60,000  more  men.  A  sudden  and  fierce 
excitement  spread  like  wildfire  throughout  the  North,  and  a 
spasm  of  warlike  feeling  stirred  the  hearts  of  men  in  every 
community  and  neighborhood.  The  effect  was  not  at  all  what 
the  Eichmond  statesmen  had  counted  upon,  but  it  was  very 
much  what  they  should  have  expected.  The  presence  of  Lee 
in  Pennsylvania  did  all  that  was  necessary  to  render  the  Draft 
endurable  and  only  failed  of  making  it  popular.  Certain 
it  is  that  there  remained  hardly  a  tithe  of  the  trouble  in  enforc- 
ing it  that  there  might  have  been  but  for  a  vague  idea  which 
almost  every  man  unconsciously  entertained  that  he  could  hear 
the  sound  of  distant  cannonading  and  possibly  of  drums. 

The  President  urged  forward  with  all  his  might  the  army 
movement  under  Meade.  He  did  not  neglect  the  forces  in 
front  of  Washington  nor  the  insufficient  counter-movement 
towards  Richmond.  At  the  same  time  he  stimulated  to  his 
uttermost,  as  his  letters  and  dispatches  to  the  commanding 
generals  testify,  the  operations  he  was  watching  in  the  West. 
He  pushed  forward  with  increased  vigor  the  now  almost  com- 
pletely organized  machinery  for  the  enforcement  of  the  Draft. 
The  decisive  hour  had  come,  and  he  proved  himself  fully  equal 
to  all  its  demands  upon  him.  So  did  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
So  did  the  men  in  the  West,  under  Grant. 

The  first  week  of  July,  1863,  was  crowned  with  hard-won 
triumph.  The  garrison  of  Yicksburg  surrendered  to  General 
Grant  on  the  4th,  and  so,  a  few  days  later,  did  that  of  Port 
Hudson,  further  down  the  river.  With  these  was  also  surren- 
dered the  Mississippi  River  to  its  mouth.  The  Confederacy 
was  cleft  in  twain,  never  more  to  be  the  compact  and  stubbornly 
resisting  mass  which  it  so  long  had  been.  In  the  East,  on  the 


394  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

first  day  of  the  month,  at  Gettysburg,  the  advanced  corps  of 
the  armies  under  Meade  and  Lee  began  a  struggle  as  of  life 
and  death.  At  the  end  of  the  first  day's  fighting  the  advan- 
tage was  with  the  Confederates ;  but  all  they  had  won  had  cost 
them  dearly.  All  through  the  hot  hours  of  July  2,  and  on 
into  the  night,  the  strife  continued  with  a  success  so  varying  that 
the  result  still  trembled  in  the  balance.  At  night  a  council  of 
war  was  held  by  Meade  and  his  generals,  and  the  corps  com- 
manders unanimously  voted  to  stay  and  fight  it  out.  It  is 
recorded  of  General  W.  S.  Hancock,  in  particular,  that  when 
his  opinion  was  called  for  hp  added  to  it,  in  strong  language, 
"  The  Army  of  the  Potomac  has  retreated  too  often."  It  is  a 
sufficient  comment  upon  the  aspect  of  affairs  that  the  usual 
and  prudent  precautions  for  covering  the  retreat  of  the  army 
in  case  of  further  disaster  were  made  with  special  care.  The 
fighting  on  the  third  day  began  with  the  dawn  of  light ;  but 
before  noon  its  bloody  tides  were  manifestly  turning  in  favor 
of  the  Union.  It  became  necessary  for  Lee  to  strike  a  desper- 
ate, decisive  blow,  and  he  prepared  for  one  which,  if  it  could 
have  succeeded  against  the  preparations  made  to  receive  it, 
would  have  changed  the  remaining  history  of  the  war.  It  was 
begun  a  little  after  3  o'clock  P.M.,  the  best  troops  of  the  Rebel 
army,  hitherto  untouched  and  fresh,  being  hurled  against  the 
Union  centre.  They  have  been  estimated  at  about  18,000  men, 
under  General  Pickett,  sometimes  termed  the  "Ney  of  the 
Confederate  armies."  It  was  a  grand  charge,  well  planned 
but  for  a  mistaken  idea  as  to  what  it  was  to  meet,  and  it  was 
made  magnificently  ;  but  it  failed  in  slaughter,  rout,  and  ruin, 
and  its  failure  terminated  the  Invasion  of  the  North.  The 
Rebel  forces  still  held  the  positions  to  which  they  had  fallen 
back,  but  at  half  past  6  o'clock  P.M.  they  ceased  firing.  They 
still  held  their  ground,  unassailed,  during  all  the  next  day;  and 
General  Meade's  caution  in  not  instantly  pressing  another 
general  engagement  has  found  able  defenders  as  well  as  severe 
critics  among  military  men. 


TEE  TURNING  POINT.  395 

Except  on  the  first  day,  the  actual  combatants  had  not  been 
very  unequally  matched  as  to  numbers,  and  then  only  by  the 
Confederate  troops  being  the  more  rapidly  carried  into  action. 
General  Meade  had  under  him,  first  and  last,  about  82,000  men, 
not  all  engaged,  while  General  Lee  had  about  73,500  actually 
present  for  service.  The  cavalry  on  either  side  was  about 
equal  in  numerical  strength,  but  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was 
largely  superior  in  field-artillery.  The  severity  of  the-  fighting 
is  grimly  illustrated  by  the  losses^  in  killed,  wounded,  and  miss- 
ing. These  are  trustworthily  reported  or  estimated  at  23,186 
for  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  and  22,728  for  the  Army  of 
Northern  Virginia,  a  difference  of  458  men  in  apparent  favor 
of  the  Confederacy. 

Lee's  errand  in  the  North  was  over,  at  the  end  of  such  a  fight, 
even  if  it  were  to  be  considered,  what  some  of  the  Confederate 
leaders  actually  claimed,  "  a  drawn  battle."  It  was,  indeed, 
nothing  of  the  kind,  but  a  distinctly  marked  and  definite  defeat 
of  Lee's  army,  which  only  escaped  destruction  because  it  was 
not  instantly  smitten  again. 

Fresh  troops  were  pouring  forward  to  re-enforce  Meade,  and 
Mr.  Lincoln  urged  him  to  assume  the  offensive  again  at  once ; 
but  he  failed  to  do  so.  General  Lee  was  once  more  permitted, 
though  with  better  reason  than  after  the  Antietam  battle, 
peaceably  and  all  but  unmolested  to  withdraw  a  shattered 
though  still  stubborn  and  dangerous  army  and  to  retreat  into 
Virginia. 

This  second  invasion  of  the  North  terminated  much  more 
disastrously  for  the  Confederacy  than  did  the  mad  march  which 
ended  at  the  Antietam.  When  the  results  of  it  were  summed 
up  and  the  great  events  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  were 
added  to  them,  it  was  discovered  that  the  entire  military  situa- 
tion had  undergone  a  change.  Both  in  the  East  and  in  the 
"West  this  change  was  of  a  nature  that  was  necessarily  perma- 
nent, and  the  possible  future  area  of  the  war  was  narrower  than 
before.  Its  tide  had  unmistakably  turned  and  was  ebbing 


396  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Southward,  however  any  of  its  waves  might  thenceforth 
advance  or  recede. 

During  all  the  time  of  the  change,  nevertheless,  and  even 
after  its  bloody  crisis  was  passed,  serious  political  matters 
already  referred  to  had  demanded  the  thoughtful  attention  of 
the  President.  The  governor,  for  the  time  being,  of  the  great 
State  of  New  York  had  taken  upon  himself  to  be  a  sort  of 
official  mouthpiece  for  the  elements  opposed  to  the  enforcement 
of  the  Draft  of  men  for  the  army.  He  indeed  represented 
them,  for  by  their  votes  he  was  in  office.  It  is  now  impossible 
to  more  than  guess  what  might  have  been  the  course  of  such  a 
man,  so  upheld,  if  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  had  ended  in  a 
rout  of  Meade's  army,  or  if  Grant,  at  the  same  time,  had  been 
repulsed  before  Yicksburg.  As  it  was,  and  while  yet  the  clouds 
of  uncertainty  and  dread  hung  over  the  battle-fields  and  hid 
the  coming  victories,  the  many  emissaries  of  the  Richmond 
government,  and  low  demagogues  without  any  other  commis- 
sion than  such  as  their  own  malice  gave  them,  worked  busily 
and  effectively  among  the  more  debased  and  ignorant  popula- 
tions of  New  York  and  other  great  cities.  The  Draft  Act 
contained  an  unhappy  clause  whereby  a  man  could  secure 
exemption  through  a  money  payment,  and  it  was  easy  to 
represent  this  as  a  "rich  man's  exemption."  This  provision 
added  materially  to  the  necessarily  offensive  nature  of  the  law, 
great  as  was  its  real  mercy.  The  promoters  of  sedition  were 
able  so  to  use  it  as  to  touch  as  with  caustic  all  the  sore  places 
of  poverty  and  of  class  prejudice. 

Military  events  had  now  accomplished  much  in  the  way  of 
checking  the  growth  and  preventing  the  pernicious  effect  of 
all  this  excitement ;  but  the  path  for  mischief  to  come  had  been 
prepared  in  ways  unperceived  by  Mr.  Lincoln.  "Well  as  he 
knew  his  countrymen  generally,  he  was  but  little  acquainted 
with  the  population  of  New  York  City.  He  knew  as  little  of 
it,  in  fact,  as  do  nine  tenths  of  its  better  classes  at  this  day. 
He  was  not  at  all  aware  how  strong,  active,  and  well-armed  a 


THE  TURNING  POINT.  397 

"  garrison"  it  constantly  requires  in  time  of  peace.  He  there- 
fore could  not  estimate  how  much  more  numerous  and  efficient 
should  have  been  its  armed  occupancy  at  such  an  hour  of  sure 
and  sore  emergency  as  that  of  the  enforcement  of  the  Draft 
Act. 

The  time  was  one,  for  him  especially,  in  the  intense  excite- 
ment of  whose  tremendous  events  almost  any  human  oversight 
might  well  be  pardoned ;  but  the  precise  error  he  committed  or 
permitted  was  full  of  peril.  He  allowed  the  New  York  State 
authorities  to  strip  the  city  of  its  organized  militia  in  response 
to  his  call  for  temporary  troops  to  check  the  advance  of  Lee. 
They  were  all  sent,  but  there  was  little  use  made  of  them  at 
Gettysburg.  That  fighting  was  hardly  the  kind  of  work  for 
militia. 

The  additional  error  was  then  committed  of  seeming  to  for- 
get their  very  existence,  and  so  of  not  hastening  their  return  to 
the  place  where  they  were  needed  as  guardians  of  peace  and 
law.  It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  how  precisely  such  an  emergen- 
cy could  occur  again,  but  it  might. 

For  several  generations  the  city  of  New  York  had  received 
from  Europe,  in  addition  to  all  that  was  good  and  valuable  in 
human  immigration,  a  steady  influx,  such  as  it  still  receives,  of 
the  vilest  elements  of  the  worst  populations  of  the  Old  World. 
The  children  of  these  people  do  not  become  Americans,  and 
their  very  grandchildren,  in  a  large  proportion,  are  still  alien 
in  heart  and  soul  to  all  that  distinctively  makes  and  consti- 
tutes Americanism. 

From  these  elements  had  come  but  few  "  volunteers"  for  the 
army,  and  nearly  as  many  deserters  as  volunteers.  Upon 
them,  however,  the  Draft  was  now  about  to  lay  its  iron  hand ; 
and  the  word  went  around  among  them  that  the  militia  were 
all  gone,  they  had  only  the  police  to  deal  with,  and  the  city 
was  at  their  mercy.  Their  dull  brains  were  slow  to  grasp  the 
new  idea,  and  the  first  day  of  the  Draft  passed  very  quietly. 
This,  after  several  postponements,  had  been  ordered  by  the 


398  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"War  Department  at  Washington  to  take  place  on  Saturday, 
the  llth  of  July.  It  was  to  be  under  the  purely  imaginary 
protection  of  a  few  squads  of  the  Invalid  Corps ;  and  the  Met- 
ropolitan Police  were  not  notified,  nor  was  any  request  made 
of  them  for  assistance  or  even  for  especial  vigilance.  They 
had  no  expectation  of  any  disturbance,  and  made  no  preparation 
whatever.  It  was  a  full  week  after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg, 
and  every  militia  regiment  might  as  well  have  been  at  home. 
The  Metropolitan  Police  force  was  an  admirable  body  of  men, 
well  organized,  well  drilled,  efficient,  self-reliant,  and  was 
officered  and  handled  by  men  of  uncommon  courage  and  capa- 
city. It  was  strong  enough,  even  in  numbers,  to  meet  any 
reasonable  demand ;  but  a  strain  beyond  all  reason  was  about  to 
be  thrown  upon  it. 

The  next  day  was  Sunday,  the  12th,  and  it  is  a  noteworthy 
fact  that  the  everywhere-present  police  did  not  discover  or 
report  a  single  indication  of  the  coming  trouble.  There  were 
timid  people  who  feared  something ;  there  were  angry  men 
who  made  many  threats  in  the  ears  of  sympathizers ;  the  mob 
was  thoroughly  ready  for  it  knew  not  what :  but  Sunday  passed 
very  quietly. 

"  The  Mob."  That  was  a  thing,  an  existence,  a  feature  of 
the  population  of  the  United  States,  of  which  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
no  definite  knowledge.  Even  his  old  rough  neighbors,  the 
"  Clary's  Grove  Boys,"  were  fit  to  wear  wings  in  comparison 
with  the  wild  beasts  who  were  now  about  to  astonish  him.  If 
he  had  any  thought  of  possible  trouble  in  the  great  city,  he 
doubtless  believed,  with  all  its  good  citizens,  that  the  police 
would  be  strong  enough  to  prevent  any  general  disturbance  of 
the  peace.  So  they  were,  and  would  have  been  had  they  not 
been  permitted  to  be  taken  utterly  by  surprise. 

On  Monday,  the  13th,  the  offices  for  enrollment  and  selec- 
tion opened  again,  but  it  was  only  to  close  in  haste.  The  Mob 
rose  suddenly  and  grew  fast,  compelling  accessions  to  its  ranks 
under  pain  of  death,  by  a  fiercely  brutal  "  draft  act"  of  its  own. 


THE  TUENING  POINT.  399 

It  rapidly  discovered  and  assured  itself  of  its  power,  and  the 
city  learned,  for  the  first  time,  what  a  multitude  of  devilish 
natures  it  contained.  Four  days  of  riot  and  lawlessness  fol- 
lowed. There  were  twenty-four  distinct  "  fires"  of  importance 
within  twenty-four  hours  from  the  outbreak  of  the  riot,  and 
what  was  then  the  "  Fire  Department"  was  unfit  to  deal  with 
them.  Too  many  of  its  "  volunteer"  membership  were  among 
the  rioters,  and  it  was  one  of  the  things  destroyed  by  the  mob 
and  those  fires. 

At  the  first,  a  pretense  was  made  by  the  rioters  of  confining 
all  actual  murders  committed  by  them  to  colored  men  and 
women  and  children,  and  members  of  the  police  force.  This, 
however,  was  soon  abandoned,  and  any  well-dressed  or  de- 
cently behaved  man  was  in  peril  of  being  pointed  out  as  "  a 
Lincoln  man"  of  some  kind,  and  of  being  inhumanly  butch- 
ered. Stores  and  houses  were  broken  into  and  sacked  and 
fired,  and  the  negro  orphan-asylum  was  devilishly  destroyed. 
Plunder,  drunkenness,  cruelty,  held  a  sort  of  carnival. 

The  Metropolitan  Police  did  their  duty  like  heroes,  fighting 
magnificently,  under  every  disadvantage.  Beaten  and  mur- 
dered in  small  squads  or  singly,  they  did  not  lose  a  single  fight, 
from  first  to  last,  where  the  odds  were  not  more  than  ten  to 
one  against  them,  or  where  they  could  bring  a  reasonable  force 
to  bear.  As  it  was,  they  held  their  assailants  at  bay,  checked 
their  ravages,  prevented  untellable  devastation,  and  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  overpowering  the  Mob.  Private  citizens  armed 
themselves  and  came  to  help,  twelve  hundred  entering  the 
police  force  as  sworn  "specials."  The  guns  of  government 
vessels  in  the  harbor  were  brought  to  bear  at  several  localities, 
but  could  not  well  be  used.  The  fragmentary  remainders  of 
the  organized  militia  came  to  the  assistance  of  the  Metropoli- 
tans at  the  very  outset  of  the  riot.  The  veterans  of  disbanded 
"volunteer"  regiments  rallied  promptly  at  the  call  of  their 
former  commanders  and  did  excellent  service.  Details  of  in- 
fantry and  artillery  from  the  forts  in  the  harbor,  and  of  ma- 


400  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

rines  and  sailors  from  the  Navy  Yard  and  from  war-vessels  in 
the  harbor  performed  their  duty  thoroughly.  Towards  the 
close,  full  regiments  arrived  from  the  interior  of  the  State,  the 
seat  of  war  and  elsewhere,  and  quiet  was  at  last  restored. 

The  fighting  was  continuous  and  bloody.  How  many  of 
the  Mob  were  actually  killed  and  wounded  before  its  fury  was 
expended  and  its  power  broken  was  never  officially  reported. 
There  were  reasons  for  not  saying  too  much  about  it  at  the  time, 
but  the  count  probably  fell  little  short  of  fifteen  hundred. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  bitterly  but  unjustly  blamed  for  the  occur- 
rence of  the  Draft  Riot.  Men  saw  that  its  apparent  cause  and 
opportunity  came  from  his  action  as  Chief  Magistrate  of  the 
nation,  and  many  did  not  look  much  further.  They  failed  to 
consider  that  he  was  as  ignorant  as  they  were  that  the  wild 
beasts  of  Europe  were  so  numerous  in  the  dens  of  New  York 
City. 

The  good  uses  of  the  whole  matter  were  at  once  developed, 
and  the  Draft  Riot  was  of  incalculable  assistance  to  the  Ad- 
ministration. The  entire  country,  in  its  amazed  perusal  of  the 
newspaper  accounts  of  the  horror,  could  see  the  glare  of  the 
burning  buildings  and  hear  the  brutal  roar  of  the  Mob  and 
the  shrieks  of  its  helpless  victims.  The  sacking  of  the  negro 
orphan-asylum,  the  murder  of  colored  persons,  and  the  other 
hideous  cruelties  of  the  rioters,  turned  old  pro-slavery  Demo- 
crats, by  the  thousand,  into  red-hot  Abolitionists.  The  entire 
affair,  moreover,  with  all  its  disgrace  and  misery,  was  finally 
charged  over  to  the  account  which  was  to  be  settled  with  the 
Rebellion.  Everybody  felt  that  a  Draft,  or  something  even 
more  dreadful,  ought  to  be  put  in  operation  at  once,  and  that 
nothing  else  under  heaven  was  half  so  bad  as  a  Mob. 

The  Governor  of  New  York  had  not  distinguished  himself, 
during  the  riot,  by  any  effort  of  his  to  suppress  it,  but  he  con- 
tinued a  demand  he  had  made  upon  the  President  for  a  post- 
ponement of  the  Draft,  and  for  sundry  modifications  of  its 
operation.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  ask  that  the  postpone- 


THE  TURNING  POINT.  401 

ment  should  be  until  a  test  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  Act 
should  be  had  before  the  courts.  Mr.  Lincoln's  reply  was,  in 
effect,  that  he  had  no  objection  whatever  to  having  the  matter 
brought  before  the  Supreme  Court,  but  that,  in  the  mean  time, 
the  Draft  must  go  on  and  the  ranks  of  the  army  must  be  filled 
up.  He  said : 

"  We  are  contending  with  an  enemy  who,  as  I  understand, 
drives  every  able-bodied  man  he  can  reach  into  his  ranks,  very 
much  as  a  butcher  drives  bullocks  into  a  slaughter-pen.  No 
time  is  wasted,  no  argument  is  used.  This  produces  an  army 
which  will  soon  turn  upon  our  now  victorious  soldiers  already 
in  the  field,  if  they  shall  not  be  sustained  by  recruits  as  they 
should  be." 

The  immediate  action  of  the  Confederate  authorities  was 
precisely  as  described  by  the  President  to  Governor  Seymour.. 
The  South  called  for  its  last  man  after  the  defeat  at  Gettys- 
burg, and  the  war  went  on  with  a  stubbornness  of  determina- 
tion unsurpassed  in  history. 

It  was  not  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  nature  to  withhold  his  admiration 
from  the  ability  and  courage  of  the  men  with  whom  he  was 
contending.  To  him,  as  to  any  right-minded  man,  the  record 
of  their  fruitless  daring  and  misdirected  devotion  had  in  it  a 
sort  of  mournful  fascination. 

"Who  can  feel  other  than  an  emotion  of  sadness  and  regret, 
for  instance,  in  mentally  looking  down  the  slope  at  the  Gettys- 
burg fight  and  seeing  Pickett's  magnificent  columns  and  lines 
march  on  and  melt  away  in  that  wonderful  charge  which  was, 
after  all,  a  blunder?  And  so  of  many  another  charge  and 
rally  of  our  gallant  but  misguided  brethren  of  the  now  doomed 
Confederacy. 


402  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK  XLIX. 

THOKNS. 

Poisoned  Arrows — The  Ways  of  a  Workingman — "Western  Bickerings — 
An  Extraordinary  Congress — Presenting  the  President's  Case  —  Pre- 
paring the  Political  Future — Visitors  at  the  "White  House — Wearing 
Away — Unconditional  Unionism  Portrayed — Voices  of  Goodwill  from 
Europe — The  Gettysburg  Speech. 

IT  is  well  to  keep  in  sight  the  fact  that  the  bitter  opposition 
to  the  policy  of  the  Administration  had  generally  assumed  the 
shape  of  a  personal  detestation  of  the  President.  Hatred  has 
keen  eyes,  and  it  made  no  error  in  this,  for  he  was  "  the  Admin- 
istration." 

No  satire  was  too  pointed,  no  ridicule  too  coarse,  no  calumny 
too  vile,  no  vituperation  too  profane,  to  be  hurled  at  the  man 
whom  both  American  and  English  journalists  did  not  hesitate 
to  describe  as  a  "gorilla"  and  as  "the  Illinois  ape."  "Well 
might  even  so  respectable  an  affair  as  the  London  Punch^ 
after  his  death,  in  1865,  print  with  his  obituary  its  versified 
and  thorough  contrition  for  its  course  towards  him  as  a  man 
and  ruler.*  It  is  not  possible  to  rightly  measure  the  strength 
of  any  man  without  taking  into  account  all  the  weights  mak- 
ing up  the  burden  he  is  carrying.  It  is  not  pleasant,  now,  to 
think  of  such  a  man  exposed  to  such  foul  and  cowardly  abuse ; 
but  he  had  it  all  to  endure  daily,  nevertheless. 

His  personal  manner  changed  but  little,  and  whatever  varia- 
tions came  were  not  caused  by  any  thought  or  purpose  of  his 
own.  Any  special  reserve,  or  coldness,  or  sternness,  as  well  as 

*  See  Appendix. 


THORNS.  403 

any  special  heartiness  in  his  greetings  of,  men  or  women,  was 
an  outward  expression  which  took  care  of  itself,  for  he  was  no 
actor.  From  his  childhood  to  his  last  days,  his  kindly  nature 
came  to  the  surface  in  a  smile  on  reaching  out  his  hand  to  grasp 
another.  He  could  not  help  it.  A  child  could  stop  him  and 
get  a  pleasant  word  from  him,  even  if  he  were  on  his  way  to 
the  State  Department  or  the  War  Office.  Some  success  had 
been  attained  by  Mrs.  Lincoln  in  her  efforts  at  securing 
greater  care  in  matters  of  dress,  but  the  care  was  almost 
entirely  her  own,  he  merely  submitting  to  occasional  new 
clothes  with  more  docility,  including  gloves  on  state  occasions. 
He  was  a  man  of  too  much  good  sense  to  despise  the  minor 
social  proprieties  of  all  sorts,  but  his  head  and  heart  were  too 
full  of  the  larger  interests  of  his  position  to  spare  much  thought 
for  its  formalities.  It  had  not  been  easy  to  make  him  attend 
regularly  to  his  meals  in  Springfield,  and  the  difficulty  in- 
creased in  Washington.  Towards  his  immediate  subordinates, 
private  secretaries,  messengers,  and  other  officials  or  servants,  it 
may  almost  be  said  that  he  had  no  manner  at  all,  he  took  their 
presence  and  the  performance  of  their  duties  so  utterly  for 
granted.  Not  one  of  them  was  ever  made  to  feel,  unpleasantly, 
the  fact  of  his  inferior  position  by  reason  of  any  look  or  word  of 
the  President.  All  were  well  assured  that  they  could  not  get 
a  word  from  him  unless  the  business  which  brought  them  to 
his  elbow  justified  them  in  coming.  The  number  of  times  that 
Mrs.  Lincoln  herself  entered  his  business-room  at  the  White 
House  could  probably  be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand. 
It  is  a  misuse  of  words  and  a  falsification  of  ideas  to  say  or 
think  that  this  absorption  in  duty  and  simplicity  in  manner 
implied  or  produced  any  real  lack  of  dignity.  True  dignity  of 
character  can  carry  well  what  littleness  breaks  down  under. 
The  most  superficial  observer,  looking  in  upon  Lincoln  and  his 
Cabinet  of  uncommonly  strong  men,  during  an  hour  of  trial  and 
its  counsels,  could  have  had  no  difficulty  in  pointing  out  their 
unquestionable  chief  and  leader. 


404  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Mr.  Lincoln,  in  all  his  public  career,  invariably  left  his  per- 
sonal popularity  to  take  care  of  itself.  He  never  for  one 
moment  hesitated  to  do  the  most  unpopular  things  that  were 
required  of  him  by  the  duties  of  the  hour.  In  the  long-run 
events  were  pretty  sure  to  justify  his  judgment,  even  in  cases 
where  it  had  gone  against  that  of  other  men  or  contrary  to 
local  public  opinion. 

Concerning  a  multitude  of  matters,  including  many  of  great 
importance,  he  was  compelled  to  form  his  conclusions  from 
such  information  as  he  was  able  to  obtain  from  interested 
parties,  making  such  allowances  as  he  could  for  their  preju- 
dices. It  was  needful  to  trust  largely  to  representations  made 
by  men  whose  social,  political,  or  military  position  seemed  to 
render  them  trustworthy  and  responsible  witnesses.  A  notable 
instance  of  this  occurred  in  the  summer  and  fall  of  1863.  It 
had  been  difficult  to  steer  a  straight  course  among  the  jarring 
factions  of  Missouri  and  Kansas,  especially  because  they  all 
contained  so  many  able  and  excellent  men.  Had  each  of  the 
more  prominent  Union  men  of  that  section  been  in  fact  the 
being  he  was  described  by  some  equally  active  patriotic  neigh- 
bor, Mr.  Lincoln's  task  in  the  premises  would  have  been  com- 
paratively easy.  The  foreign  element  in  both  States  was  large, 
and  was  mainly  composed  of  German  immigrants  of  the  better 
classes.  The  ISTew  England  settlers  were  numerous  and  were 
generally  of  the  extreme  anti-slavery  type.  The  "  old  settler" 
element,  on  the  other  hand,  was  not  at  all  anti-slavery,  and  a 
good  deal  of  its  "  Union"  feeling  had  been  developed  some- 
what late  in  the  day,  but  it  was  none  the  less  important  and  en- 
titled to  thoughtful  consideration.  The  "  rebel  sympathizers" 
were  also  numerous,  and  added  to  the  difficulties  of  the  situa- 
tion the  continual  complications  of  their  intrigues  and  conspira- 
cies. It  was  simply  impossible  for  any  military  commander, 
however  competent  as  an  "  army  man,"  to  so  carry  himself  in 
his  management  of  affairs  as  not  to  get  himself  into  trouble. 
Every  man  Mr.  Lincoln  sent  there  got  in,  if  time  were  given 


THORNS.  405 

him.  From  the  day  of  General  Fremont's  withdrawal,  varie- 
ties of  discontents  had  exhibited  themselves  in  many  annoying 
ways.  There  were  not  many  "leading  men,"  Senators,  Con- 
gressmen, governors,  generals,  or  editors,  from  the  western  bank 
of  the  Mississippi  and  beyond,  who  had  not  at  one  time  or 
another  obtained  an  interview  with  the  President  to  explain  to 
him  the  goodness  and  wisdom  of  their  own  faction  and  the  un- 
mixed evil  of  every  other. 

Such  was  the  case,  in  a  measure,  with  several  other  States 
and  localities ;  but  nowhere  else  was  the  difficulty  quite  so  in- 
grained and  irremediable.  Kansas  and  Missouri  had  been  a 
sort  of  battle-ground,  even  before  the  war,  and  they  had  not 
yet  entirely  ceased  to  be  so.  The  troubles  in  the  Eastern 
States,  in  the  Center,  in  the  Northwest,  were  pretty  well  over- 
come by  the  effects  of  the  great  victories  and  of  the  Draft  Riot 
in  New  York.  Still,  the  political  situation  could  not  be  con- 
sidered at  all  clear  so  long  as  the  disturbances  in  the  far  "West 
were  so  great  and  were  so  directly  attributed  to  the  acts  of 
"  satraps"  retained  in  power  by  the  President's  favoritism  and 
incapacity. 

The  time  drew  near  for  the  annual  meeting,  at  Washington, 
of  the  Grand  Council  of  the  Union  League,  and  the  public 
generally  was  not  at  all  aware  of  the  fact.  The  disaffected 
politicians  of  Kansas  and  Missouri  were,  however,  and  they 
were  all  of  them  members  of  the  League.  The  delegations 
from  those  States  to  the  Grand  Council  were  composed  exclu- 
sively of  the  critics  of  the  Administration.  They  included 
United  States  Senators,  Representatives,  and  a  Governor  or  so, 
and  all  the  way  across  the  country  they  addressed  gatherings 
of  people  and  rehearsed  their  story  of  the  blunders  and  tyran- 
nies of  the  Government.  They  reached  the  city  of  Washing- 
ton in  due  time,  and  they  attended  the  Grand  Council. 

This  was  an  admirably  selected  representative  body  of  men, 
fresh  from  the  people.  It  was  an  independent  Congress,  an 
important  part  of  whose  membership  was  entitled  to  seats  in 


406  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  other  "  Congress,"  provided  for  by  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  The  session  was  secret,  of  course,  and  there  was 
no  reason  why  men  should  not  talk  freely.  Mr.  Lincoln  never 
knew — perhaps — how  thoroughly  his  Western  policy  and 
much  of  his  other  policy  was  pulled  in  pieces  in  the  course  of 
that  verbally  stormy  evening.  His  assailants  had  everything 
their  own  way  at  first.  They  labored  with  fiery  energy.  It 
was  a  desperate  effort  of  the  personal  opposition  in  his  own, 
party  to  create  a  sentiment  against  him  in  timely  preparation, 
for  the  political  canvass  of  1864.  The  assault  was  well  planned 
and  was  ably  and  even  eloquently  made,  but  it  failed  some- 
what ignobly. 

The  Kansas  military  management  had  been  selected  as  the 
very  worst  feature  of  all  that  part  of  the  "  dictatorship  and 
tyrannical  personal  despotism,"  but  no  proper  preparation  had 
been  made  for  the  manner  and  matter  of  the  reply.  The 
Council  seemed  to  be  in  almost  entire  sympathy  with  the  op- 
pressed and  downtrodden  complainants,  and  no  single  voice 
had  been  raised  in  defense  of  the  Administration. 

At  last,  however,  one  of  the  Grand  Officers  of  the  League 
took  the  stand.  He  simply  offered  evidence,  written  and  oral, 
that  the  policy  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  Kansas,  in  whole  and  in  part, 
had  been  at  its  outset  advised  and  all  but  dictated  by  the  very 
men  who  now  assailed  him  for  it.  It  was  also  shown  that  at 
no  point  from  the  beginning  of  the  war  had  the  President 
failed  to  consult  with  the  Senators  and  members  of  Congress 
from  both  Kansas  and  Missouri. 

There  was  very  little  of  what  is  called  eloquence  in  such  a 
rejoinder ;  but  no  more  speeches  were  made,  for  none  were 
needed.  The  Council  promptly  and  all  but  unanimously,  omit- 
ting the  malcontents  from  the  count,  adopted  a  resolution  ap- 
proving and  sustaining  the  Administration. 

It  was  a  vote  which  meant  a  great  deal  at  that  pecuh'ar  junc- 
ture, and  it  was  followed  by  yet  another  which  was  destined  to 
produce  important  political  fruit.  This  was  the  action  of  the 


THORNS.  407 

Grand  Council  providing  that  its  next  Annual  Meeting  should 
be  held  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  locality  with  the 
National  Convention  of  the  Republican  party  for  the  nomina- 
tion of  candidates  for  President  and  Yice-President.  The 
Union  League  of  America  was  fast  becoming,  to  all  present 
intents  and  purposes,  the  organized  body  of  the  Republican 
party  and  the  Home  Guard  and  rear-guard  of  the  Union 
armies  in  the  field. 

The  members  of  the  Grand  Council  went  home  and  reported 
what  things  they  had  heard  and  seen  at  Washington.  Every 
man  of  them  had  heard  and  seen  Abraham  Lincoln,  and,  with 
a  few  exceptions,  was  proud  of  the  fact  and  ready  to  sustain 
him  in  anything  he  might  thenceforth  see  fit  to  do.  It  was 
simply  impossible  for  any  unprejudiced  man  or  woman  to  look 
him  in  the  face  and  take  his  kindly  hand  and  then  to  not  laugh 
at  or  be  angry  with  the  next  lunatic  who  should  speak  of  him 
as  a  "  tyrant." 

Even  many  who  came  to  that  gathering  loaded  with  false 
ideas  left  their  burdens  on  the  steps  of  the  White  House  when 
they  came  away  from  their  interview.  If  it  had  been  possible 
and  if  Mr.  Lincoln  could  have  met  such  a  popular  representa- 
tion, newly  selected  every  month  in  the  year  and  man  by  man, 
there  would  have  been  small  misunderstanding  of  him  by  the 
people.  In  one  manner  he  was  actually  so  doing,  for  men  and 
women  were  continually  coming  to  him  with  their  sorrows 
and  petitions.  Now  it  was  a  mother  asking  for  her  sick  or 
wounded  son,  that  she  might  take  him  home  with  her  and 
nurse  him  back  to  health.  Then  it  was  another  mother,  who 
liad  given  four  of  her  sons  to  her  country  and  three  had  fallen 
in  battle  and  but  one  was  left,  and  she  wanted  him.  Then  it 
was  a  group  of  anxious  men  and  women  pleading  for  the  for- 
feited life  of  some  deserter,  or  for  the  establishment  of  a  hos- 
pital, or  for  some  other  mitigation  of  the  horrors  of  the  war. 

Not  infrequently  it  was  even  an  embassy  from  "  the  other 
side," — some  mother  or  wife  pleading  for  a  captive  son  or 


408  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

husband.  Mr.  Noah  Brooks,  at  that  time  a  Washington  corre- 
spondent for  one  of  the  New  York  papers,  has  given  an  in- 
stance of  this  latter  kind  which  Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  in  one  of 
his  very  few  spare  minutes,  wrote  out  for  Mr.  Brooks  to  print 
as  a  newspaper  paragraph.  On  the  opposite  page  appears  a 
fac-simile  of  the  little  scrap,  entitled  by  Mr.  Lincoln,  "The 
President's  Last,  Shortest  and  Best  Speech." 

He  listened  to  all,  bore  with  all,  sympathized  with  all ;  and 
he  was  glad  indeed  to  be  offered  a  fair  excuse  for  extending 
mercy  to  an  offender. 

All  the  while,  through  the  heavy  shadows  and  through  the 
brief  gleams  of  broken  sunshine,  the  hearts  of  the  people  be- 
came more  and  more  knit  to  his,  and  there  came  to  be  less  and 
less  need  of  formal  explanations  between  him  and  the  patriotic 
masses. 

By  forcible  draft  as  by  voluntary  enlistment,  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  calling  upon  men  to  step  forward  and  die  for  their  coun- 
try, and  he  well  knew  that  his  own  name  was  among  those 
"  enrolled."  He  verily  was  dying  by  slow  inches.  It  has  been 
said,  with  some  show  of  probability,  that  before  he  left  Illi- 
nois he  as  well  as  others  had  a  presentiment  that  he  would  fall 
by  the  hand  of  violence.  There  would  be  small  cause  for 
wonder  if  all  that  is  related  of  this  matter  were  minutely  true. 
Still  smaller  occasion  would  there  be  to  regard  so  very  reason- 
able an  impression  as  at  all  prophetic  or  supernatural. 

The  strong  impression  now  spoken  of  was  of  another  sort, 
and  was  equally  reasonable.  To  one  friend  he  said :  "  The 
springs  of  life  are  wearing  away,  and  I  shall  not  last."  To 
another,  in  apology  for  telling  a  humorous  story :  "  If  it  were 
not  for  this  occasional  vent,  I  should  die."  To  another :  "  I 
feel  a  presentiment  that  I  shall  not  outlast  the  Rebellion.  When 
it  is  over,  my  work  will  be  done."  To  another :  "  Whichever 
way  it  ends,  I  have  the  impression  that  I  shall  not  last  long 
after  it  is  over."  In  1864  Mrs.  H.  B.  Stowe  asked  him  "  what 
policy  he  proposed  to  pursue  after  the  war."  With  a  mourn- 


C     r*  0        * 


£- 


Newspaper  Paragraph,  Penned  by  Mr.  Lincoln. 


THORNS.  409 

f ul  sort  of  laugh,  he  replied :  "  After  the  war  ?  I  shall  not  be 
troubled  about  that.  The  war  is  killing  me." 

Men  looked  into  his  face,  day  by  day,  and  saw  there  something 
they  could  not  understand.  It  gave  them  the  idea  of  a  man 
in  suppressed  pain,  and  they  were  apt  to  turn  away  with  little 
inclination  to  find  fault  with  him.  Some  weight  should  be 
given  to  all  this,  with  reference  to  his  "  personal  ambition"  for 
a  second  term  of  office  and  his  asserted  desire  to  perpetuate  his 
political  power. 

There  was,  as  there  always  is  and  must  be,  a  great  deal  of  self- 
conceit  and  stupidity  in  the  country  in  those  days.  There  were 
men,  in  very  considerable  numbers,  who  had  learned  little  or 
nothing  in  the  terrible  school  of  the  war.  Some  of  these,  pos- 
ing for  the  moment  as  "  unconditional  Union  men,"  proposed 
and  called  an  universal  mass-meeting,  to  be  held  at  Springfield, 
Illinois.  That  this  was  Mr.  Lincoln's  old  home  was  an  impor- 
tant part  of  the  "  stage  effect "  designed  to  be  produced.  As 
a  part  of  the  preparations  for  the  announced  discussion  of  the 
faults  and  follies  of  the  Government,  a  written  invitation  to 
be  present  and  hear  himself  discussed  was  sent  to  the  President 
of  the  United  States. 

With  this  invitation,  these  Unconditional  Union  men  for- 
warded a  statement  of  some  of  the  conditions  upon  which  they 
were  willing  to  be  unconditional.  They  thus  gave  him  an  ad- 
mirable opportunity  for  talking  plainly  to  the  elements,  the 
whole  country  over,  which  they  so  well  represented,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  for  setting  them  up  for  exhibition  in  a  tolerably 
clear  light  before  the  world.  His  reply  was  dated  August  23, 
1863,  at  a  time  when  he  was  making  extensive  preparations  for 
employing  colored  men  as  soldiers.  It  is  almost  conversational 
in  style  and  language,  but  was  perfectly  adapted  to  its  purpose. 

Among  its  other  pointed,  or  stirring,  or  stinging  sentences, 
are  these : 

"  You  say  you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes.  Some  of  them 
seem  willing  to  fight  for  you ;  but  no  matter.  Fight  you,  then, 


410  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

exclusively  to  save  the  Union.  I  issued  the  Proclamation  on 
purpose  to  aid  you  in  saving  the  Union.  ...  I  thought  that, 
in  your  struggle  for  the  Union,  to  whatever  extent  the  negroes 
should  cease  helping  the  enemy,  to  that  extent  it  weakened  the 
enemy  in  his  resistance  to  you.  But  negroes,  like  other  men, 
act  upon  motives.  Why  should  they  do  anything  for  us  if  we 
will  do  nothing  for  them  ?  If  they  stake  their  lives  for  us,  they 
must  be  prompted  by  the  strongest  motive,  even  the  promise 
of  freedom.  And  the  promise,  being  made,  must  be  kept." 

That  was  a  clear  enough  setting  forth  of  the  mere  worldly 
wisdom  of  his  policy.  It  offered  precisely  the  kind  of  self- 
preservation  argument  which  such  men  might  be  supposed  to 
be  able  to  comprehend.  He  added,  "  The  signs  look  better," 
and  gave  them  a  brief  sketch  of  the  advances  already  made  to- 
ward the  military  end.  He  closed  his  reply  with  words  which 
none  who  read  them  were  likely  to  forget,  and  it  mattered  very 
little  that  some  would  not  soon  forgive. 

"  Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I  hope  it  will 
come  soon,  and  come  to  stay,  and  so  come  as  to  be  worth  the 
keeping  in  all  future  time.  It  will  then  have  been  proved  that 
among  freemen  there  can  be  no  successful  appeal  from  the 
ballot  to  the  bullet,  and  that  those  who  take  such  appeal  are 
sure  to  lose  their  case  and  pay  the  cost.  And  there  will  be 
some  black  men  who  can  remember  that,  with  silent  tongue, 
and  clinched  teeth,  and  well-poised  bayonet,  they  have  helped 
mankind  on  to  this  great  consummation ;  while  I  fear  there 
will  be  some  white  ones  unable  to  forget  that  with  malignant 
heart  and  deceitful  speech  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it." 

Never  for  one  moment,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  did 
Mr.  Lincoln  forget  that  the  war  for  freedom  and  the  Union 
was  fought  on  behalf  of  the  oppressed  of  all  nations.  There 
was  no  cause  for  wonder  that  the  intelligent  aristocracies  and 
higher  castes  of  Europe  should  desire  the  success  of  the  Con- 
federacy. The  Rebels  in  a  manner  represented  them  and  were 
curiously  proud  to  say  so.  On  the  other  hand,  that  multitudes 


THORNS.  411 

of  the  classes  in  other  lands  whose  interests  were  at  stake  in 
the  struggle — the  ignorant,  the  poor,  the  toilers — should  receive 
and  hold  and  act  upon  a  deep  conviction  of  the  truth  of  the 
matter,  constitutes  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  features  of  the 
time.  The  cotton  operatives  of  England  suffered  more  than 
others  from  the  effects  of  the  war ;  but  they  were  wiser  than 
their  rulers,  and  their  hearts  were  with  the  North. 

In  1863  they  sent  to  the  President  a  letter,  from  the  work- 
ingmen  of  Manchester  in  particular,  but  well  understood  to  be 
the  voice  of  a  great  multitude.  They  expressed  their  sympathy 
and  good-will  and  hope,  and  he  sent  them  a  reply  in  which  he 
said  to  them :  "  It  has  been  often  and  studiously  represented 
that  the  attempt  to  overthrow  this  government,  which  was 
built  upon  the  foundation  of  human  rights,  and  to  substitute 
for  it  one  which  should  rest  exclusively  upon  the  basis  of 
human  slavery,  was  likely  to  obtain  the  favor  of  Europe. 
Through  the  action  of  our  disloyal  fellow-citizens,  the  work- 
ingmen  of  Europe  have  been  subjected  to  severe  trial,  for  the 
purpose  of  forcing  their  sanction  to  that  attempt.  Under  these 
circumstances  I  cannot  but  regard  your  decisive  utterances  upon 
the  question  as  an  instance  of  sublime  Christian  heroism  which 
has  not  been  surpassed  in  any  age  or  in  any  country." 

More  and  more  clear,  as  time  went  on,  became  Mr.  Lincoln's 
perception  of  the  Source  of  all  true  heroism.  More  continu- 
ously and  thoughtfully  outspoken  became  his  public  acknowl- 
edgments and  declarations  of  his  perceptions.  In  his  public 
dispatch  announcing  to  the  nation  an  assured  victory  at  Gettys- 
burg, he  expressed  his  desire  that,  in  the  customary  celebration 
of  "  The  Fourth  of  July,"  the  anniversary  of  national  inde- 
pendence, "He  whose  will,  not  ours,  should  everywhere  be 
done,  be  everywhere  reverenced  with  profoundest  gratitude." 

The  country  never  before  had  such  a  keeping  of  the  Fourth ; 
but  it  is  worth  while  to  note  how  sudden  was  the  change  from 
utter  depression  to  a  capacity  for  "  celebration."  In  the  city 
of  Washington  itself  the  usual  preparations  had  been  under 


412  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

way  for  some  time  and  on  a  somewhat  larger  scale  than  usual. 
Such  was  the  gloomy  state  of  the  public  mind,  however,  that 
several  of  the  most  patriotic  citizens  and  even  well-known 
statesmen  openly  declared  their  refusal  to  join  in  the  exercises 
of  the  day.  The  feeling  grew  to  such  a  strength  that  a  meet- 
ing of  "  loyal  citizens"  was  held,  and  a  committee  appointed  to 
call  upon  the  Chairman  of  the  Celebration  Committee  having 
the  matter  in  charge  and  urge  an  abandonment  of  the  whole 
affair,  as  inappropriate  under  the  truly  awful  circumstances. 
The  appointed  committee  called  upon  the  chairman  and  stated 
their  errand,  receiving  for  reply : 

"  Gentlemen,  there  will  be  a  celebration  of  the  Fourth  of 
July  in  "Washington  this  year,  and  there  will  be  a  big  one  too, 
if  we  can  hear  Lee's  cannon  all  the  time,  and  if  we  adjourn 
from  the  speaker's  stand  to  the  trenches." 

It  was  made  a  great  day,  there  and  everywhere,  in  the  abid- 
ing assurance  from  Mr.  Lincoln  that  the  sound  of  General  Lee's 
cannon  was  forever  receding.  Everywhere  was  read,  as  a  part 
of  the  regular  proceedings,  the  dispatch  of  the  President  declar- 
ing his  belief  in  the  God  who  had  given  to  the  nation  the  fruits 
of  that  great  battle  and  of  the  parallel  victories  in  the  West. 

He  had  not,  however,  completed  the  great  lessons  he  was  to 
teach  from  the  tremendous  text  of  the  Gettysburg  fight.  The 
State  of  Pennsylvania  bought  a  piece  of  land  on  the  battle-field 
and  gave  it  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States  as  a  ceme- 
tery wherein  to  bury  the  bodies  of  the  slain  heroes.  It  was 
land  on  which  many  of  them  had  actually  fallen,  and  some  were 
already  buried  there.  On  the  19th  of  November  the  battle 
cemetery  was  dedicated  with  solemn  ceremonies.  The  Hon. 
Edward  Everett,  of  Massachusetts,  delivered  an  oration  worthy 
of  his  high  oratorical  fame.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  invited 
to  be  present,  but  the  stern  pressure  of  his  duties  pre- 
vented elaborate  preparation.  After  leaving  Washington,  while 
on  the  way,  he  wrote  a  few  sentences  which  have  found  a 
lasting  place  in  the  hearts  and  memories  of  men. 


THORNS.  413 

"  Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth 
upon  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty  and 
dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 
Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can  long 
endure.  We  are  met  upon  a  great  battle-field  of  that  war.  "We 
have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting- 
place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might 
live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 
But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot  consecrate, 
we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave  men,  living  and 
dead,  who  struggled  here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our 
power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long 
remember,  what  we  say  here ;  but  it  can  never  forget  what 
they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated 
here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have 
thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here 
dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  for  us,  that  from  these 
honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  the  cause  for  which 
they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion;  that  we  here 
highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain ;  that 
this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and 
that  the  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

Among  the  vast  throng  listening  there  were  those  who  had 
expected  a  long  speech,  full  of  they  knew  not  what,  and  so 
were  disappointed,  and  freely  declared  as  much ;  but  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  said  enough,  and  all  the  loyal  land  responded  with  a 
deep-voiced  and  reverent  "  Amen !" 


414 


FAC-SIMILE 

OF  THE 


GETTYSBURG  CEMETERY  SPEECH, 

AS  COPIED  OUT  FOR  ENGRA  VING, 

BY  THE 

PRESIDENT,  AFTER  ITS  DELIVERY. 


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416  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK  L. 

THE  BEGINNING  OF   THE   END. 

Keeping  Good  Workmen — Absence  of  Favoritism — A  Political  Revolution 
— A  National  Prayer-Meeting — The  Coming  General — Helpless  in- 
trigues. 

IT  would  be  fair  to  describe  Mr.  Lincoln's  management  of 
the  long  list  of  military  commanders  under  his  direction  as  a 
persistent  effort  by  him  to  put  each  man,  as  nearly  as  might 
be,  in  the  place  for  which  he  was  best  fitted  and  wherein  he 
could  perform  the  most  effective  service. 

If,  having  appointed  any  man  to  an  especial  duty,  he  found 
him  insufficient  for  it,  he  was  quite  willing  to  transfer  him  to 
another.  If  a  strong  man's  usefulness  were  impaired  or  de- 
stroyed by  local  or  transitory  causes,  no  undue  or  continuing 
weight  was  ever  assigned  to  these. 

Fine  illustrations  of  this  rare  element  in  the  President's  ca- 
pacity as  a  ruler  are  furnished  by  the  records  of  Generals 
Burnside  and  Hooker,  after  each  in  turn  had  ceased  to  com- 
mand the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  Neither  Fredericksburg  nor 
Chancellorsville  was  permitted  to  deprive  the  country  of  valu- 
able services.  There  was  no  sort  of  quarrel  between  either  of 
them  and  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  they  went  on,  in  new 
fields  and  with  other  armies,  to  prove  the  soundness  of  his 
judgment  concerning  them. 

The  watchfulness  required  for  the  exercise  of  such  a  judg- 
ment was  all  but  sleepless,  and  called  for  the  constant  study  of 
circumstances  as  well  as  of  men  and  of  apparent  results.  Mr. 
Lincoln's  hours  of  hard-won  solitude  were  a  perpetual  "  court 
of  inquiry."  He  followed  every  movement  of  every  army 


TEE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END.  417 

with  the  map  before  him,  yet  never  permitted  himself  to  make 
the  error  of  meddling  with  the  decision  of  a  competent  general 
in  the  field.  He  himself,  unintentionally  but  accurately,  sets 
forth  his  methods  of  study  and  control,  in  his  letter  of  con- 
gratulation to  General  Grant  after  the  Yicksburg  triumph. 
It  is  dated  July  13,  1863. 

"  MY  DEAR  GENERAL  :  I  do  not  remember  that  you  and  I 
have  ever  met  personally.  I  write  this  now  as  a  grateful  ac- 
knowledgment for  the  almost  inestimable  service  you  have 
done  the  country.  I  write  to  say  a  word  further.  When  you 
first  reached  the  vicinity  of  Yicksburg,  I  thought  you  should 
do  what  you  finally  did, — march  the  troops  across  the  neck, 
run  the  batteries  with  the  transports,  and  then  go  below ;  and 
I  never  had  any  faith,  except  a  general  hope,  that  you  knew 
better  than  I  that  the  Yazoo  Pass  expedition  and  the  like: 
could  succeed.  When  you  got  below  and  took  Port  Gibson^ 
Grand  Gulf,  and  vicinity,  I  thought  you  should  go  down  the- 
river  and  join  General  Banks,  and  when  you  turned  northward,, 
east  of  the  Big  Black,  I  feared  it  was  a  mistake.  I  wish,  now,, 
to  make  the  personal  acknowledgment  that  you  were  right 
and  I  was  wrong." 

Every  man  who  did  his  duty  was  sure  of  precisely  such 
thoughtful  and  unselfish  appreciation,  if  by  any  means  the 
facts  in  the  case  could  be  brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
President.  Sometimes,  beyond  question,  the  facts  were  not  so 
brought  to  his  knowledge,  and  injustice  followed ;  but  it  was 
never  by  any  neglect  upon  the  part  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Even  in- 
jured men  came  to  so  understand  the  matter  at  last,  and  few 
were  so  unreasonable  as  to  demand  from  him  omniscience  as 
well  as  justice.  As  a  whole,  the  record  of  his  assignments  to 
duty  will  bear  a  remarkably  close  scrutiny,  and  his  continual 
discoveries  of  the  men  he  was  looking  for  were  notably  justi- 
fied by  their  subsequent  careers  and  achievements.  His  per- 
sonal attachments,  strong  as  they  admittedly  were,  never  were 
permitted  to  come  between  him  and  his  perception  of  the  re- 


418  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

quirements  of  the  public  service.  His  oldest  son,  Robert  Todd 
Lincoln,  was  a  student  at  college  when  the  war  broke  out. 
His  father  did  but  restrain  the  young  man's  enthusiastic  im- 
pulse to  join  the  army  and  kept  him  at  his  books  until  his 
course  of  study  was  completed.  A  subordinate  staff  appoint- 
ment was  then  given  him,  just  as  such  appointments  were  given 
to  hundreds  of  other  bright  young  men,  and  there  all  parental 
"  favoritism"  terminated.  The  President's  son  served  to  the 
end  of  the  war  and  left  the  army  as  a  simple  captain.  It  is 
more  than  probable  that  his  abilities  would  have  given  him 
a  higher  grade  but  that  his  very  birthright  was  in  his  way. 
The  record  conveys  its  lesson  forcibly. 

The  remainder  of  the  summer  and  autumn  of  the  year  1863 
was  well  marked  by  military  activities  and  successes,  and  only 
here  and  there  by  any  considerable  check  to  the  national  arms, 
both  in  the  East  and  West.  Yery  much  the  most  important 
work  accomplished,  however,  was  largely  in  the  nature  of  a 
clearing  up  and  securing  title  to  the  ground  already  won,  and 
preparing  for  the  final  struggle. 

The  results  of  the  fall  elections  were  such  as  might  have 
been  expected.  The  reaction  of  popular  feeling  from  deep 
•depression  to  buoyant  hope  was  sufficient  to  carry  every  State 
but  one,  New  Jersey,  for  the  Administration.  Even  there  the 
combined  opposition  assumed  an  attitude  of  earnest  Unionism. 
A  Congress  was  secured  which  could  be  depended  on  for 
voting  the  last  man  and  the  last  dollar  for  war  purposes. 
It  nevertheless  contained  a  number  of  active  and  able  men 
who  were  anything  but  well  pleased  with  Mr.  Lincoln's  per- 
sonal control  of  the  affairs  in  his  hands.  There  was  little  to  be 
wondered  at  in  this.  He  was  no  tyrant,  indeed,  and  he  was 
thoughtfully  cautious  in  his  respect  for  all  the  prerogatives  of 
the  legislative  branch  of  the  government ;  but  the  fact  of  his 
autocracy  within  his  own  sphere  was  often  painfully  manifest. 
The  United  States  contained  but  one  President,  and  he  was 
necessarily  dictatorial  in  war  times :  and  his  name  was  Abraham 


THE  BEGINNING   OF  THE  END.  419 

Lincoln.  It  was  not  always  pleasant  for  some  other  man 
strong  of  will  and  conscious  of  capacity  and  of  good  purposes 
towards  himself  and  his  country,  when  brought  into  sudden 
contact  or  collision  with  an  unyielding  power  he  had  never 
felt  before. 

Yery  little  public  grumbling  was  done,  however,  before 
Congress  assembled  at  Washington,  for  the  people  were  hardly 
in  a  state  of  mind  to  listen  to  it  kindly,  except  from  mouth- 
pieces of  the  beaten  "  opposition."  The  President,  without 
especially  laboring  for  it,  was  fast  rallying  to  his  personal  sup- 
port the  great  religious  element  which,  in  all  its  diversified 
forms  of  doctrinal  belief  and  of  semi-repudiation  of  doctrinal 
belief,  is  the  positive  body  and  soul  of  the  American  people. 
He  was  uniting,  as  one  man,  the  multitude  of  earnest  hearts 
that  believed,  absolutely,  that  the  cause  of  the  Union  was  the 
cause  of  the  God  Almighty. 

On  the  15th  of  July,  1863,  he  issued  a  proclamation,  imme- 
diately following  up  his  previous  utterances  of  a  similar  nature, 
in  which  he  named  the  6th  of  August  as  a  day  of  public 
thanksgiving  and  prayer.  He  asked  all  men  and  women  to 
"  render  the  homage  due  to  the  Divine  Majesty  for  the  won- 
derful things  He  has  done  in  the  nation's  behalf ;  and  invoke 
the  influences  of  his  Holy  Spirit  to  subdue  the  anger  which  has 
produced  and  so  long  sustained  a  needless  and  cruel  rebellion ; 
to  change  the  hearts  of  the  insurgents ;  to  guide  the  counsels 
of  the  government  with  wisdom  adequate  to  so  great  a  national 
emergency ;  and  to  visit  with  tender  care  and  consolation, 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  our  land,  all  those  who, 
through  the  vicissitudes  of  marches,  voyages,  battles,  and  sieges, 
have  been  brought  to  suffer  in  mind,  body,  or  estate ;  and 
finally,  to  lead  the  whole  nation  through  paths  of  repentance 
and  submission  to  the  Divine  Will,  back  to  the  perfect  enjoy- 
ment of  union  and  fraternal  peace." 

That  was  a  grand  prayer-meeting;  and  it  was  led  by  the 
President  in  person.  He  made  the  customary  "  Thanksgiving 


420  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Day"  in  November  the  occasion  of  a  similar  proclamation ;  and 
it  is  through  him,  in  a  very  great  measure,  that  that  day  has 
ceased  to  be  local  and  has  become  general  and  national  in  its 
annual  observance.  He  again  summoned  the  people  to  prayer 
and  thanksgiving  on  the  7th  of  December,  after  the  Union 
successes  in  East  Tennessee.  The  conviction  grew  in  the 
minds  of  all  that  the  President  was  fighting  this  fight  out  in 
the  name  of  God  and  believed  that  God  was  helping  him.  It 
was  easier  for  the  masses  to  strengthen  their  own  faith  after 
that  idea  took  permanent  root.  The  very  few  who  sneered  at 
the  whole  thing  as  an  hypocritical  formality  were  not  num- 
bered among  those  whose  hearts  were  aching  over  losses  or  who 
were  meditating  further  sacrifices  for  the  cause.  Men  who 
suffer  have  a  keen  instinct  which  informs  them  of  the  suffering 
of  another  man,  and  it  was  of  little  use,  in  those  days,  to  ac- 
cuse Abraham  Lincoln  of  playing  a  part.  He  was  well  hated, 
but  even  his  worst  enemies  were  forced  to  believe  in  him. 

One  of  the  steps  towards  the  proposed  reorganization  of  the 
Army  was  the  appointment  of  General  Grant  to  the  command 
of  the  Military  Department  of  the  Mississippi ;  but  it  was  only 
one  of  several  steps  which  the  President  had  in  view.  The 
rest  of  them  depended  very  much  upon  the  course  and  out 
come  of  the  winter  campaigns. 

It  was  by  no  means  plain  that  General  Meade  was  the  right 
man,  above  all  others,  to  lead  the  Army  of  the  Potomac ;  much 
less  to  handle  the  tremendous  forces  preparing  for  the  last 
struggle  with  the  Rebellion.  It  was  sure  that  the  Confederacy 
would  die  hard,  striking  terrible  blows  to  its  last  breath.  The 
situation  demanded  something  more  than  an  accomplished 
soldier ;  something  more,  even,  than  a  good  general.  It  was 
time  for  the  war  to  be  closed,  and  only  a  hand  of  iron  could 
be  entrusted  with  the  relentless  and  machine-like  processes  of 
its  closing.  The  eyes  of  the  nation  as  well  as  of  the  President 
were  turning  with  more  and  more  of  definite  hope  and  pur- 
pose towards  the  man  for  the  hour  which  was  coming. 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  END.  421 

The  Message  to  Congress  contained,  of  necessity,  an  his- 
torical review  of  the  events  of  the  year  and  a  setting  forth  of 
their  justification  of  the  leading  features  of  the  policy  of  the 
Administration.  Emancipation,  employment  of  colored  sol- 
diers, reconstruction,  foreign  relations,  the  national  finances,  a 
number  of  minor  topics,  were  presented  in  proper  form,  but  it 
was  mainly  a  "  report  of  progress"  and  an  expression  of  con- 
fident hope.  The  territory  already  rescued  from  the  grasp  of 
the  Richmond  government  was  to  be  restored  to  relations  with 
the  Constitution  and  the  laws  as  rapidly  as  possible.  No  doubt 
remained  that  its  present  reoccupation  implied  permanent  pos- 
session. No  power  existed  in  the  now  shattered  and  weakened 
Confederacy  to  break  the  national  mastery  of  the  regions  so  to 
be  reconstructed,  and  the  beginning  of.  the  end  had  come. 

A  conviction  of  this  fact  settled  firmly  in  the  minds  of  all 
the  politicians  north  of  the  Rebel  army-lines,  and  it  produced 
some  curious  results.  Close  upon  the  announcement  by  Mr. 
Lincoln  that  he  regarded  his  administration  as  a  success  and  not 
a  failure  came  the  accusation  that  he  was  ambitious  of  a  re- 
election to  the  Presidency.  The  suggestion  that  he  was  already 
intriguing  for  such  a  result  followed  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 
it  came  from  the  lips  of  the  busy  men  who  were  already  in- 
triguing to  prevent  his  success.  The  twin  accusations,  as  such, 
died  a  very  early  and  perfectly  natural  death.  The  sound- 
minded  people,  the  country  over,  took  it  for  granted  that  Mr. 
Lincoln  desired  a  second  term  and  thought  no  whit  the  worse 
of  him.  No  man  with  unclouded  brain  could  have  understood 
or  approved  a  willingness,  on  the  part  of  the  President,  to  lay 
down  such  a  work  before  it  was  completed.  Not  many  would 
have  held  him  morally  excusable  for  such  a  sin  against  the 
nation.  He  would  need  another  term  to  reap  and  gather  in 
the  great  harvest  now  ripening,  and  there  was  no  other  reaper 
to  whom  the  task  was  at  all  likely  to  be  given  unless  the  "  op- 
position" themselves  should  succeed  in  electing  their  man. 
As  for  "  intrigue,"  it  was  only  too  obvious  that  no  other  form 


422  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

of  it  was  called  for  than  might  be  included  in  a  vigorous  and 
successful  prosecution  of  the  war.  Everybody  saw  the  point 
clearly,  and  not  a  few  were  intelligent  enough  to  perceive  and 
say  that  the  politicians  had  a  great  deal  more  time  on  their 
hands  for  that  kind  of  political  work  than  had  the  over-wearied 
toiler  in  the  map-strewn  room  in  the  White  House.  They  had 
all  the  time,  indeed,  that  was  used  in  the  premises.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln gave  the  matter  no  attention  whatever,  except  when  some- 
body forced  it  upon  him.  The  real  intriguers  talked  much 
and  worked  hard  and  failed  for  a  long  time  to  discover  what  a 
mere  skeleton  of  a  faction  they  really  were.  It  consisted  al- 
most altogether  of  "  leading  men,"  and  the  further  they  went 
the  greater  became  the  gap  between  them  and  the  vote-casting 
masses  of  the  Union. 


TEE  SECOND  NOMINATION.  423 


CHAPTEE  LI. 

THE   SECOND   NOMINATION. 

Lieutenant-General  Grant — The  First  Great  Relief — Dealing  with  Guerillas 
— Condensation  of  the  Confederacy — The  Double  National  Convention 
— The  Administration  Formally  Approved. 

THE  military  events  of  the  winter  of  1863-4,  intensely  inter- 
esting as  they  were,  belong  exclusively  to  the  history  of  the 
war.  They  were  such  as  enabled  Mr.  Lincoln  to  move  stead- 
ily forward  along  the  line  he  had  so  distinctly  marked  out. 

The  grade  of  Lieutenant-General,  previously  created  solely 
for  the  purpose  of  conferring  an  honor  upon  General  Scott, 
was  revived  by  Act  of  Congress,  February  29, 1864,  and  the 
President  fulfilled  his  own  previous  purpose  concerning  it  when 
he  complied  with  the  popular  acclamation  which  named  Ulys- 
ses S.  Grant  as  the  man  for  the  place.  It  was  equally  a  matter 
of  course  that  the  President  and  the  Lieutenant-General  should 
instantly  agree  upon  General  W.  T.  Sherman  as  Grant's  succes- 
sor in  the  West. 

General  Grant  received  his  new  commission  on  the  9th  of 
March,  1864,  at  the  hands  of  the  President  in  person,  at  the 
Executive  Mansion,  in  the  presence  of  the  Cabinet  and  General 
Halleck.  The  occasion  was  made  somewhat  ceremonial,  but 
the  words  spoken  on  either  side  were  few  and  very  much  to 
the  point.  The  appointment  of  an  officer  outranking  all  others 
was  an  affair  of  momentous  importance.  So  far  as  the  Army  was 
concerned,  only  the  President  and,  through  him,  the  Secretary  of 
War  held  higher  commissions.  Still  it  should  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  new  rank  of  General  Grant  did  not  necessarily  affect 


424  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

or  change  or  reduce  the  rank  of  any  other  officer  in  any  of  the 
armies.  General  Meade  remained  as  before,  for  instance,  in 
direct  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  which  after- 
wards received  Grant's  orders  through  Meade.  General  Hal- 
leek  did  not  cease  to  be  the  President's  military  counselor  be- 
cause Mr.  Lincoln  had  at  last  obtained  an  arm  of  iron  where- 
with to  deal  the  blows  he  had  so  longed  to  deal,  but  in  vain. 

General  Grant  at  once  entered  upon  the  discharge  of  his 
duties,  taking  up  his  headquarters  with  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 
mac, on  the  10th  of  March ;  and  it  was  not  long  before  the 
President  began  to  experience  an  unwonted  feeling  of  relief. 
The  tremendous  burden  which  he  had  borne  so  long  and  so 
patiently  began  to  slip  away  a  little.  He  could  with  difficulty 
realize  it  at  first,  the  situation  was  so  new  and  so  agreeable. 
A  few  weeks  later,  in  April,  a  personal  friend  came  into  his 
office  on  Sunday  forenoon.  The  President  lay  upon  the  sofa, 
seeming  more  than  usually  fatigued  but  cheerful.  He  did  not 
rise  at  first,  but  chatted  freely  upon  several  topics.  At  last 
his  visitor  remarked : 

"Now,  Mr.  Lincoln,  what  sort  of  a  man  is  Grant?  Pve 
never  even  seen  him.  He  has  taken  hold  here  while  I  have 
been  kid  up.  What  do  you  think  of  him  ?" 

The  President  half  arose,  and  laughed  silently,  as  he  replied : 

"  "Well, ,  I  hardly  know  what  to  think  of  him,  alto- 
gether. He's  the  quietest  little  fellow  you  ever  saw." 

"How  is  that?" 

"  Why,  he  makes  the  least  fuss  of  any  man  you  ever  knew. 
I  believe  two  or  three  times  he  has  been  in  this  room  a  minute 
or  so  before  I  knew  he  was  here.  It's  about  so  all  around. 
The  only  evidence  you  have  that  he's  in  any  place  is  that  he 
makes  things  git !  Wherever  he  is,  things  move  !" 

He  grew  energetic  as  he  talked,  and  there  was  almost  a  glow 
upon  his  face.  He  was  describing  the  man  he  had  been  long- 
ing for.  Other  questions  and  answers  followed,  until  the  visi- 
tor inquired : 


THE  SECOND  NOMINATION.  425 

"  But  how  about  Grant's  generalship  ?  Is  he  going  to  be  the 
man?" 

Mr.  Lincoln  again  half  arose,  and  emphasized  his  reply  with 
his  long  forefinger : 

" ,  Grant  is  the  first  general  I've  had !    He's  a  general !" 

"  How  do  you  mean,  Mr.  Lincoln  ?" 

"  Well,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  mean.  You  know  how  it's  been 
with  all  the  rest.  As  soon  as  I  put  a  man  in  command  of  the 
army,  he'd  come  to  me  with  a  plan  of  a  campaign  and  about  as 
much  as  say,  '  Now,  I  don't  believe  I  can  do  it,  but  if  you  say 
so  I'll  try  it  on,'  and  so  put  the  responsibility  of  success  or 
failure  on  me.  They  all  wanted  me  to  be  the  general.  Now 
it  isn't  so  with  Grant.  He  hasn't  told  me  what  his  plans  are. 
I  don't  know,  and  I  don't  want  to  know.  I'm  glad  to  find  a 
man  that  can  go  ahead  without  me." 

A  slightly  critical  reply  brought  the  President  bolt  upright. 

"  You  see, ,  when  any  of  the  rest  set  out  on  a  campaign, 

they'd  look  over  matters  and  pick  out  some  one  thing  they  were 
short  of  and  they  knew  I  couldn't  give  'em,  and  tell  me  they 
couldn't  hope  to  win  unless  they  had  it, — and  it  was  most  gene- 
rally cavalry."  He  paused  for  one  of  his  quiet,  long,  peculiar 
laughs  and  went  on.  "  Now,  when  Grant  took  hold,  I  was  waiting 
to  see  what  his  pet  impossibility  would  be,  and  I  reckoned  it 
would  be  cavalry,  as  a  matter  of  course,  for  we  hadn't  horses 
enough  to  mount  even  what  men  we  had.  There  were  fif  teejn. 
thousand,  or  thereabouts,  up  near  Harper's  Ferry,  and  no  horses 
to  put  them  on.  Well,  the  other  day  Grant  sends  to  me  about 
those  very  men,  just  as  I  expected ;  but  what  he  wanted  to 
know  was  whether  he  should  make  infantry  of  'em  or  disband 
'em.  He  doesn't  ask  impossibilities  of  me,  and  he's  the  first 
general  I've  had  that  didn't." 

Somewhat  carelessly  and  half  grotesquely  he  had  sketched 
some  of  his  most  trying  responsibilities,  such  as  had  pressed  upon 
him  from  before  the  firing  of  the  Sumter  gun.  Men  of  all  other 
sorts,  as  well  as  generals  in  command  of  armies,  had  demanded 


426  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

impossibilities  of  him,  and  some  had  hated  and  denounced  him 
because  he  performed  no  miracle.  He  might  well  rejoice  also, 
as  he  did,  in  the  arrival  of  a  man  who  would  require  no  urging, 
but  who  would  be  sure  to  strike  again,  after  every  battle,  with 
supreme  indifference  to  the  semblance  which  that  battle  might 
bear  to  either  victory  or  defeat.  That  part  of  the  load  could 
be  confidently  laid  aside :  but  what  remained  was  still  over- 
heavy  for  mortal  shoulders. 

The  work  of  restoring  order  in  the  reoccupied  States  was 
going  bravely  forward,  and  the  severest  measures  for  the  sup- 
pression of  guerilla  warfare  and  neighborhood  revenges  were 
enforced  with  the  President's  full  approval.  That  is  to  say, 
with  his  full  approval  of  as  much  as  he  knew  of  the  precise 
manner  of  the  enforcement,  for  a  good  deal  of  bloody  work 
was  done  whereof  no  report  went  up.  The  merciful  side  of  his 
nature  inclined  him,  in  this  important  matter,  to  extend  all  pos- 
sible protection  to  undefended  homes  and  women  and  children. 
The  continuous  record  of  atrocities  committed  was  an  all-suffi- 
cient justification.  He  took  all  reasonable  means,  at  the  same 
time,  for  maintaining  and  defending  the  rights  of  colored  sol- 
diers in  the  ranks  of  Union  armies,  East  and  West. 

Not  taking  into  specific  consideration  operations  on  the  sea, 
nor  sea-coast  defenses,  nor  detached  commands,  the  military 
situation  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1864  may  be  summed  up  in 
outline  as  follows : 

The  dimensions  and  the  strength  of  the  Confederacy  had 
been  materially  reduced,  but  the  latter  had  been  in  a  manner 
concentrated  for  its  last  despairing  struggle.  Its  armies  were 
composed  largely  of  veterans,  and  were  led  by  generals  of  un- 
questionable capacity.  It  had  massed  the  greater  part  of  these 
in  two  main  bodies  with  their  branches.  One,  under  Lee,  de- 
fended its  old  ground  in  Virginia.  The  other,  under  Johnston, 
held  northwestern  Georgia,  and  with  it  the  railway  connections 
and  topographical  advantages  which  made  that  position  the 
key  to  all  that  remained  to  the  Rebellion  of  the  cotton-growing 


THE  SECOND  NOMINATION.  427 

States.  Much  remained  to  be  done  in  Louisiana,  Texas,  Ar- 
kansas, and  elsewhere,  but  these  two  armies  contained  about  all 
that  was  really  left  to  carry  on  the  war  for  slavery.  Against 
these,  therefore,  all  the  hard  fighting  of  the  year  1864  was 
planned  and  directed,  and  all  other  operations  were  of  minor 
importance. 

Every  now  and  then  half -muffled  voices  came  up  from  beyond 
the  Eebel  army-lines,  telling  of  the  weariness  of  their  long- 
suffering  which  the  masses  of  the  Southern  people  were  not 
permitted  openly  to  express.  They  had  done  all  that  it  was 
possible  for  human  beings  to  do,  and  were  beginning  to  per- 
ceive that  all  subsequent  battles  were  to  be  in  the  nature  of 
useless  bloodshed,  bordering  horribly  close  upon  the  crime  of 
wholesale  murder.  No  voice  whatever,  nor  any  small  murmur 
of  one,  came  from  the  merciless  despotism  at  Richmond  or 
from  the  men  who  controlled  its  armies  in  the  field.  They 
were  manifestly  determined  to  continue  the  strife  to  the  bitter 
end. 

The  machinery  of  the  Federal  government  was  now  in 
almost  perfect  working  order,  but  its  very  bulk  and  its  re- 
morseless efficiency  made  it  an  incubus.  The  people  were  fast 
wearying  of  incessant  exactions,  in  spite  of  the  general  appear- 
ance of  prosperity.  The  President  was  straining  every  power 
given  him  to  maintain  the  Army  and  Navy  at  their  utmost 
activity,  and  the  Opposition  was  almost  hourly  supplied  with 
texts,  great  or  small,  upon  which  to  preach  its  crusade  against 
his  administration. 

Extravagance,  wastefulness,  corruption,  favoritism,  heartless 
throwing  away  of  human  life, — a  thousand  separate  accusations 
swelled  steadily  into  a  chorus  which  was  by  many  men  believed 
to  arise  from  the  tax-paying  and  war-sustaining  masses.  This 
idea  was  altogether  a  mistake ;  but  sundry  curious  political  ex- 
periments were  tried  before  the  truth  of  the  matter  could  be 
demonstrated.  At  this  day  there  would  be  small  profit  in 
relating  the  dull  details  of  the  several  experiments.  One  of 


428  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

them  included  an  independent  and  very  irregular  "  Republican 
Convention"  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  on  the  31st  of  May,  for  the 
purpose  of  declaring  that  the  national  liberties  were  in  danger, 
and  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  be  set  aside  in  accordance  with 
"the  one-term  principle,"  which  had  never  been  heard  of 
before  to  any  noteworthy  extent. 

What  threatened  at  first  to  be  a  more  dangerous,  because 
altogether  regular,  undertaking  was  made  in  another  way,  and 
produced  beneficial  results. 

The  National  Convention  of  the  Republican  party  was  to 
be  held  at  Baltimore,  Maryland,  on  the  8th  of  June,  1864,  and 
the  National  Grand  Council  of  the  Union  League  of  America 
was  summoned  to  meet  in  the  same  city  on  the  7th.  Some- 
thing like  two  thirds  of  the  delegates  to  the  latter,  roughly 
estimated,  were  also  delegates  to  the  former,  and  the  control- 
ling spirits  of  both  were  largely  the  same  men.  The  malcon- 
tent elements  of  the  party  secured  full  and  satisfactory  repre- 
sentation in  the  Grand  Council,  and  there  were  those  among 
them  who  confidently  expected  to  there  exert  a  power  which 
would  render  the  renomination  of  Abraham  Lincoln  im- 
possible. Some  of  his  best  friends  were  not  without  anxiety 
as  to  the  results  obtainable  in  such  a  body  meeting  in  secret 
session. 

The  day  came,  and  the  city  of  Baltimore  was  packed  to  over- 
flowing. The  session  of  the  Grand  Council  was  to  be  held  in 
the  evening,  and  it  was  not  easy  for  the  outside  world  to  guess 
what  might  be  done  by  men  whose  lips  were  closed  as  to  their 
instructions  and  their  purposes.  They  came  together  in  perfect 
order  and  decorum,  but  of  course  without  any  audience  to  hear 
or  cheer  or  interfere.  Hardly  had  the  preliminary  work  of  the 
evening  been  completed  before  the  prepared  assault  upon  the 
Administration  in  general  and  Mr.  Lincoln  in  particular  was 
vigorously  begun  and  prosecuted.  There  was  a  superabun- 
dance of  seemingly  good  material  for  such  an  assault,  and  it 


THE  SECOND  NOMINATION.  429 

seemed  before  long  as  if  the  Council  were  about  to  be  swept 
away  by  a  rising  tide.  This,  however,  was  mainly  because  the 
Kansas  and  Missouri  orators  and  a  few  others  had  been  quietly 
permitted  to  have  their  own  way  unanswered.  Besides,  almost 
every  man  in  the  whole  body  of  delegates  was  compelled  to 
admit  to  himself  that  mistakes  had  been  committed,  by  some- 
body; by  a  great  many  persons  in  authority ;  perhaps  by  Mr. 
Lincoln ;  perhaps  even  by  Congress ;  perhaps  by  the  Nation  as 
a  whole ;  and  perhaps  by  the  human  race  itself.  The  very  bit- 
terness and  eloquence  of  the  successive  attacks  answered  an 
admirable  purpose.  They  cleared  away  the  mental  fogs  in  the 
minds  of  all  who  heard,  and  at  last  all  of  these  that  remained 
required  only  the  strong  breeze  of  one  decisive  argument.  It 
was  given  by  Senator  "  Jim"  Lane  of  Kansas,  himself  formerly 
for  a  season  anything  but  a  friend  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  de- 
fended the  Administration.  His  speech  was  not  long,  but  it 
was  masterly,  for  it  enabled  each  of  his  hearers  to  ask  himself 
and  answer  the  simple  question : 

"  Will  not  the  country  be  safer  with  Abraham  Lincoln  as 
President  than  with  any  other  man  I  can  name  ?" 

There  was  little  further  debate  after  Senator  Lane's  speech. 
Some  voting  was  done.  The  difficulty  was  all  over  when  it 
was  discovered  that  only  a  couple  of  dozens  of  even  the  dele- 
gates to  the  Grand  Council  were  willing  to  run  the  risk  of  ven- 
turing before  the  people  with  any  other  nominee  than  Lincoln. 
The  anticipated  storm  had  come  and  gone,  and  the  National 
Convention  the  next  day  formally  ratified  the  decision  of  the 
Union  League  without  any  disturbance  whatever.  The  twenty- 
two  votes  of  Missouri  were  cast  for  General  Grant  at  first,  but 
were  then  changed  to  Lincoln,  and  the  nomination  was  declared 
to  be  unanimous. 

The  platform  of  principles  adopted  left  very  little  to  be  asked 
for  as  an  expression  of  the  will  and  faith  and  hope  of  the  loyal 
people  of  the  United  States.  The  very  act  of  dropping  the 


430  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

name  of  Hannibal  Hamlin,  of  Maine  as  a  candidate  for  the 
Yice-Presidency,  and  the  substitution  of  that  of  Andrew  John- 
son of  Tennessee,  was  a  strong  recognition  and  approval  of  the 
policy  of  reconstruction.  This  action  is  said  to  have  been 
urged  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  personal  friends  at  his  own  private 
request. 

According  to  custom,  the  Convention  appointed  its  chair- 
man, Governor  Dennison,  of  Ohio,  with  a  committee,  to  wait 
upon  the  President  at  Washington  with  a  formal  announce- 
ment of  the  action  thus  taken.  He  received  them,  listened  to 
their  address,  and  responded  as  follows : 

"  Having  served  four  years  in  the  depths  of  a  great  and  yet 
unended  national  peril,  I  can  view  this  call  to  a  second  term  in 
nowise  more  flattering  to  myself  than  as  an  expression  of  the 
public  judgment  that  I  may  better  finish  a  difficult  work  in 
which  I  have  labored  from  the  first  than  could  any  one  less 
severely  schooled  to  the  task.  In  this  view,  and  with  assured 
reliance  on  the  Almighty  Ruler  who  has  graciously  sustained 
us  thus  far,  and  with  increased  gratitude  to  the  generous 
people  for  their  continued  confidence,  I  accept  the  renewed 
trust  with  its  yet  onerous  and  perplexing  duties  and  respon- 
sibilities." 

He  was  waited  upon  the  same  day  by  a  similar  committee 
from  the  Union  League,  but  no  report  was  made  to  him  by 
them  of  the  exact  nature  of  the  highly  interesting  session  of 
that  body. 

In  due  time  he  received  the  written  notification  of  the 
action  of  the  Republican  Convention,  with  a  copy  of  the  plat- 
form, and  to  this  he  replied,  on  the  27th  of  June : 

"  GENTLEMEN  :  Your  letter  of  the  14th  inst.,  formally  noti- 
fying me  that  I  have  been  nominated  by  the  Convention  you 
represent  for  the  Presidency  of  the  United  States  for  four 
years  from  the  fourth  of  March  next,  has  been  received.  The 


THE  SECOND  NOMINATION.  431 

nomination  is  gratefully  accepted,  as  the  resolutions  of  the  Con- 
vention called  the  platform  are  heartily  approved.  While  the 
resolution  in  regard  to  the  supplanting  of  republican  govern- 
ments on  the  Western  Continent  is  fully  concurred  in,  there 
might  be  misunderstanding  were  I  not  to  say  that  the  position 
of  the  government  in  relation  to  the  action  of  France  in  Mexico, 
as  assumed,  through  the  State  Department,  and  endorsed  by  the 
Convention  among  the  measures  and  acts  of  the  Executive, 
will  be  faithfully  maintained  so  long  as  the  state  of  facts  shall 
leave  that  position  pertinent  and  applicable.  I  am  especially 
gratified  that  the  soldier  and  seaman  were  not  forgotten  by  the 
Convention,  as  they  forever  must  and  will  be  remembered  by 
the  grateful  country  for  whose  salvation  they  devoted  their 
lives. 

"  Thanking  you  for  the  kind  and  complimentary  terms  in 
which  you  have  communicated  the  nomination  and  other  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Convention,  I  subscribe  myself 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 

The  platform  and  the  entire  action  of  the  Convention,  with 
the  terms  of  their  formal  acceptance,  combined  to  express  one 
fact  and  idea ;  and  this  was,  that  the  Republican  party  had 
determined  to  go  before  the  people  upon  the  record  made  by 
Mr.  Lincoln  as  President,  and  to  stand  or  fall  with  him.  The 
Opposition,  calling  itself  the  Democratic  party,  took  up  the 
challenge  so  offered.  It  should  not  be  necessary  to  remark  in 
this  connection,  but  it  may  be  well  to  do  so  for  the  benefit  of 
careless  readers,  that  the  parties  of  that  day  are  not  the  parties 
of  this,  whatever  may  be  some  of  the  incidental  inheritances 
of  our  existing  political  organisms.  It  is  unavoidable  to  em- 
ploy here  the  party  names  then  in  use ;  but  it  should  be  with 
the  understanding  that  they  do  not  necessarily  describe  or 
define  anything  now  in  existence. 


432  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Mr.  Lincoln  himself  had  long  since  ceased  to  be  a  partisan 
in  any  sense  of  that  word.  He  was  the  representative  and 
director  of  the  great  forces,  moral,  intellectual,  and  physical, 
devoted  to  the  work  of  developing,  shaping,  defending,  and 
perpetuating  the  new  Nation,  thenceforth  to  be  known  as  the 
United  States  of  America.  As  he  himself  expressed  it  in  his 
Gettysburg  speech,  he  had  "  highly  resolved  that  this  nation, 
under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom  ;"  and  that  which 
is  born  again  is  no  more  the  same,  forever  and  ever. 


ON  TRIAL.  433 


CHAPTEK  LII. 

ON   TRIAL. 

The  Campaign  of  Calumny — The  Reconstruction  Proclamation  —  Traps 
which  Captured  Nothing — Skirmishing  Diplomacy — The  Blunders  of 
the  Opposition — A  Union  General  in  Bad  Company. 

THE  National  Convention  of  the  Democratic  party  had  been 
called  to  meet  at  Chicago  on  the  27th  of  August.  There  re- 
mained, therefore,  after  Mr.  Lincoln's  second  nomination,  more 
than  two  full  months  during  which  his  enemies  might  plot 
and  plan  and  search  for  the  weak  spots  in  his  armor  and  devise 
weapons  wherewith  to  stab  him.  They  had  in  this  a  great, 
apparent  advantage,  with  the  concurrent  privilege  of  misrepre- 
senting whatever  he  or  his  might  do,  or  fail  to  do,  in  the  mean 
time.  Their  party  press  could  describe  every  battle  as  more 
or  less  of  a  defeat  and  keep  its  columns  open  to  the  virulent 
expression  of  every  possible  form  of  criticism,  discontent,  or 
personal  enmity.  The  Administration  was  on  trial  before  the 
country  as  a  tyranny  and  a  failure,  and  all  the  witnesses  against 
it  were  to  be  called,  mostly  swearing  if  not  sworn,  and  they 
and  their  able  advocates  were  to  have  a  free,  full,  unhindered 
hearing.  That  which  could  pass  unharmed  through  such  an 
ordeal  must  have  in  it  a  great  preponderance  of  such  pure  gold 
as  need  not  to  fear  the  fire. 

The  Opposition  was  not  left  altogether  to  the  blundering 
devices  of  the  second-rate  demagogues  and  new  ambitions  which 
nominally  controlled  its  present  operations.  The  brains  of  the 
old  pro-slavery  Democracy  had  ever  been  supplied  by  the 
South,  for  the  greater  part,  and  the  best  inspiration  and  help 
of  its  campaign  of  1864  came  still  from  Richmond. 


434  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

The  very  directness  and  simplicity  with  which  the  great 
political  question  of  the  day  was  propounded  had  in  it  some- 
thing appalling  to  many  men.  All  idea  of  change  for  the  sake 
of  change,  so  attractive  to  the  restless  and  the  weary,  was  shut 
out.  The  result  was  to  be  something  as  yet  unknown,  or  else 
four  years  more  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  ~No  man  was  greatly  in 
doubt  as  to  what  the  latter  alternative  included.  He  had  made 
his  purposes  clearly  understood,  and  his  first  public  act  after 
his  nomination  was  taken  unselfishly,  without  the  slightest 
reference  to  its  effect  upon  his  personal  popularity.  Congress 
passed,  in  July  and  just  before  its  adjournment,  an  Act  em- 
bodying an  elaborate  plan  of  reconstruction  for  the  seceded 
States,  recovered  and  to  be  recovered.  It  provided  a  system 
of  bonds  and  fetters  for  the  Executive  as  well  as  for  the  re- 
gained areas,  and  the  President  refused  his  approval.  It  was 
necessary  for  him  to  explain  his  position  to  the  country,  and 
he  did  so,  on  the  8th  of  July,  in  a  proclamation.  In  this  he 
embodied  the  Act,  as  one  of  several  admissible  plans  of  recon- 
struction, but  refused  to  commit  himself,  in  advance,  to  that 
•or  any  other  specific  mode  of  procedure,  or  to  set  aside  the 
State  governments  already  organized  in  Arkansas  and  Loui- 
siana. His  action  called  forth  very  bitter  assaults  from  men 
who  had  been  the  active  promoters  of  the  Act,  in  the  Senate 
and  House  of  Representatives ;  but  the  acquiescence  of  the  gen- 
eral public  in  the  views  of  Mr.  Lincoln  was  so  plainly  mani- 
fested that  no  great  harm  was  done.  The  unkindly  personal 
nature  of  some  criticisms  made  by  former  friends  galled  him  a 
little,  but  he  was  absorbed  in  watching  movements  of  his  polit- 
cal  enemies  which  were  of  a  much  more  perilous  and  threatening 
character. 

It  was  manifest  to  the  Richmond  managers  of  the  Democratic 
party  that  there  was  little  hope  of  successfully  opposing  a 
renewal  of  power  to  the  Lincoln  Administration  otherwise 
than  by  creating  a  division  among  its  adherents.  For  this 
purpose,  therefore,  they  plotted  well  and  wisely.  The  trap  they 


ON  TRIAL.  435 

laid  was  one  into  which  an  unwary  man  might  easily  have  stum- 
bled. That  the  Northern  people  were  weary  of  the  war  was 
very  obvious.  That  they  would  hail  with  delight  any  prospect 
of  peace  was  a  matter  of  course.  If,  therefore,  Mr.  Lincoln 
could  be  forced  or  beguiled  into  presenting  an  appearance  of 
standing  in  the  way  of  a  restoration  of  peace,  the  Democratic 
Convention  at  Chicago  would  be  provided  with  a  war-cry  and 
the  Opposition  could  go  before  the  country  with  new  hope  of 
winning  the  fall  elections. 

The  country  did  not  contain  a  purer  patriot,  with  wider  in- 
fluence, nor  the  Republican  party  an  abler  advocate  than 
Horace  Greeley,  editor  of  the  New  York  Tribune.  He  was 
therefore  selected  as  the  gateway  through  which  the  insidious 
attack  could  best  be  made.  On  the  5th  of  July  a  letter  was 
sent  to  Mr.  Greeley  from  a  wandering  diplomatist  named 
Jewett,  at  Niagara  Falls,  setting  forth  that  two  commissioners 
of  the  Confederate  Government  were  in  Canada,  with  full  powers 
to  negotiate  a  peace.  He  asked  a  conference  with  Mr.  Greeley 
or  a  safe-conduct  for  the  Eichmond  men  to  come  to  New  York. 
Very  properly,  Mr.  Greeley  sent  the  letter  to  the  President, 
with  a  statement  of  his  own  views  of  the  matter  and  of  the 
perils  threatening  the  party  and  the  Administration.  He  said, 
among  other  things :  "  A  widespread  conviction  that  the 
government  and  its  supporters  are  not  anxious  for  peace,  and 
do  not  improve  proffered  opportunities  to  achieve  it,  is  doing 
great  harm  now,  and  is  morally  certain,  unless  removed,  to  do 
far  greater  in  the  approaching  election." 

He  thus  described,  with  a  fair  degree  of  accuracy,  the  sort 
of  mine  which  the  Democratic  managers  were  digging.  Mr. 
Lincoln  replied,  on  the  9th  of  July : 

"  If  you  can  find  any  person,  anywhere,  professing  to  have 
any  proposition  of  Jefferson  Davis,  in  writing,  embracing  the 
restoration  of  the  Union  and  abandonment  of  slavery,  whatever 
else  it  embraces,  say  to  him  that  he  may  come  to  me  with  you." 

Mr.  Greeley  was  again  induced  to  write,  on  the  13th,  that 


436  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

two  persons,  duly  commissioned  and  empowered  to  negotiate 
for  peace,  were  waiting  near  Niagara  Falls  for  a  conference 
with  the  President  or  his  proper  representative ;  or  they  and 
another  would  come  to  Washington  for  such  a  conference  if  a 
safe-conduct  were  afforded.  Their  names  were  given,  and 
were  such  as  to  make  the  affair  assume  a  semblance  of  plausi- 
bility. 

Other  correspondence  followed ;  a  safe-conduct  was  freely 
offered  to  any  "  commissioners"  duly  empowered  as  stated  in 
the  President's  first  reply ;  Major  John  Hay,  one  of  the  Presi- 
dent's private  secretaries,  was  sent  to  New  York  and  to  Niagara 
Falls  with  full  power  in  the  premises ;  but  the  "  commission- 
ers" were  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  they  were  not  accred- 
ited by  the  Confederate  Government.  They  were  a  very 
attractive  political  trap  and  they  were  not  anything  more.  A 
very  precise  statement  of  the  President's  position  was  carried 
to  Niagara  Falls  by  Major  Hay  and  was  afterwards  printed  and 
read  by  the  nation.  It  was  addressed  to  many  millions  of 
people,  when  it  was  written,  quite  as  much  as  to  any  pair  or 
trio'  of  rebel  negotiators  for  party  capital.  It  read : 

"  EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
"  WASHINGTON,  July  18,  1864. 
"  To  whom  it  ma/y  concern : 

"  Any  proposition  which  embraces  the  restoration  of  peace, 
the  integrity  of  the  whole  Union,  and  the  abandonment  of  sla- 
very, and  which  comes  by  and  with  an  authority  that  can  con- 
trol the  armies  now  at  war  against  the  United  States,  will  be 
received  and  considered  by  the  Executive  Government  of  the 
United  States,  and  will  be  met  on  liberal  terms  on  substantial 
and  collateral  points ;  and  the  bearer  or  bearers  thereof  shall 
have  safe-conduct  both  ways." 

The  commissioners  were  of  course  indignant,  and  said  so ; 
and  a  slight  misunderstanding  arose  between  the  President  and 
Mr.  Greeley  as  to  the  details  of  the  correspondence  and  its 


ON  TRIAL.  437 

management.  Nevertheless  the  worst  of  the  intended  mis- 
chief was  prevented,  the  subtle  plot  was  made  a  failure,  and  all 
that  could  be  said  and  done,  before  or  after  election-day,  could 
not  convince  any  large  number  of  sound-minded  voters  that  the 
beginning  of  an  offer  of  actual  peace  had  been  made  or  intend- 
ed. That  is,  of  peace  on  any  such  terms  as  those  set  forth  by 
Mr.  Lincoln.  The  country,  as  a  whole,  had  finally  decided,  in 
its  heart  of  hearts,  that  it  was  not  willing  to  have  any  other 
kind  of  peace,  live  or  die. 

The  Opposition  made  only  fairly  good  profit  by  its  two 
months  of  preparation,  and  learned  no  wisdom  at  all.  When 
its  National  Convention  came  together  at  Chicago,  it  made 
Governor  Seymour,  of  New  York,  its  presiding  officer,  and 
Yallandigham,  of  Ohio,  the  chairman  of  its  committee  on  reso- 
lutions. The  latter  crept  back  from  his  grotesque  banishment 
in  the  Confederate  lines  just  about  in  time  to  frame  the  plat- 
form of  grievances  upon  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  to  be  assailed. 

The  platform  recited  duly  all  known  complaints  against  the 
Administration,  and  demanded  a  cessation  of  hostilities.  It 
was  a  foregone  necessity  that  even  such  an  absurd  agglomer- 
ation of  discontent  should  appeal  in  some  way  to  loyal  senti- 
ment, and  some  loyalty  was  therefore  put  in.  A  further  at- 
tempt was  made  in  the  nomination  of  General  McClellan  as 
the  Democratic  candidate  for  President.  George  H.  Pendleton, 
of  Ohio,  was  named  for  Yice-President.  It  is  only  bare  jus- 
tice to  General  McClellan  to  record  that  it  soon  appeared  that 
he  felt  very  strangely  about  that  platform  and  about  his  re- 
markable associates  and  indorsers.  He  had  had  his  difficulties 
with  Mr.  Lincoln,  indeed,  and  he  had  views  of  his  own  as  to 
the  management  of  the  war,  but  he  had  never  done  anything 
to  entitle  or  condemn  him  to  rank  with  the  kind  of  men  who 
had  been  foremost  in  giving  him  that  nomination.  The  speedy 
reports  of  his  personal  and  honorable  discontent  sent  quite  a 
large  number  of  sensible  voters  over  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  support. 

The  Democratic  Convention  closed  its  session  with  a  covert 


438  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

threat  which  had  a  half-way  revolutionary  sound  and  scared 
men  away  from  them.  It  did  not  dissolve,  as  is  customary 
with  such  bodies,  but  adjourned,  "  subject  to  be  called  at  any 
time  and  place  that  the  National  Executive  Committee  may 
designate." 

Important  Union  successes  in  the  field  aided  materially  in 
solidifying  the  good  effect  produced  by  the  action  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Convention.  Telegraphic  reports  of  victories  were  un- 
pleasant commentaries  upon  editorial  or  other  assertions  that 
"  the  conduct  of  the  war  by  the  Lincoln  despotism  has  been  and 
is  a  disgraceful  failure." 

It  could  but  be  manifest  to  all  that  the  President  had  at  his 
disposal  the  enormous  and  ubiquitous  machinery  of  the  gov- 
ernment. The  Opposition  determined  to  prop  their  failing 
fortunes  with  the  assertion  that  he  was  using  his  power  as  the 
national  Executive  to  secure  his  own  re-election. 

In  a  reply  to  a  delegation  of  loyal  Marylanders,  early  in  Oc- 
tober, he  said : 

"  I  therefore  say  that,  if  I  live,  I  shall  remain  President  un- 
til the  fourth  of  March,  and  that  whoever  shall  be  constitution- 
ally elected  in  November  shall  be  duly  installed  as  President 
on  the  fourth  of  March  ;  and,  in  the  interval,  I  shall  do  my 
utmost  that  whoever  is  to  hold  the  helm  for  the  next  voyage 
shall  start  with  the  best  chance  of  saving  the  ship." 

Now  at  such  a  time  there  might  possibly  be  raised  a  ques- 
tion as  to  who,  after  the  votes  were  counted,  was  "  constitution- 
ally elected."  Even  in  advance  it  might  be  effectively  charged 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  already  using  his  power  to  prevent  a  con- 
stitutional election.  An  excellent  opportunity  for  getting  a 
little  mischief  ready  beforehand  was  afforded  by  the  course  of 
events  in  Tennessee.  Andrew  Johnson,  the  Republican  candi- 
date for  Yice-President,  was  military  governor  of  that  State, 
in  process  of  reconstruction.  The  convention  called  to  re- 
organize the  State  had  been  composed  of  unconditional  Union 
men,  and  had  provided  an  oath  to  be  taken  by  all  voters  at 


ON  TRIAL.  439 

the  elections,  which  it  also  provided  for.  This  was  an  oath 
of  loyalty  which  could  have  been  truthfully  taken  by  only 
a  small  minority  of  the  delegates  to  the  Chicago  Convention, 
although  it  contained  no  word  which  could  have  troubled  the  con- 
science of  any  loyal  citizen  of  the  United  States.  The  cry  was 
loudly  raised  that  this  was  a  trick  of  the  Administration  to 
prevent  "  the  McClellan  men"  of  Tennessee  from  voting.  To 
strengthen  the  cry,  a  committee  of  such  men  was  chosen  to 
bear  a  written  protest  to  the  President,  at  "Washington.  They 
came  and  he  received  them,  but  for  once  his  overtasked  pa- 
tience gave  way.  The  committee  afterwards  reported  that 
he  received  them  "  roughly."  That  he  even  said  to  then* 
chairman : 

"  I  expect  to  let  the  friends  of  George  B.  McClellan  manage 
their  side  of  this  contest  in  their  own  way,  and  I  will  manage 
my  side  of  it  in  my  way."  In  reply  to  their  demand  for  an 
answer  in  writing,  as  they  reported,  he  said  : 

"  IsTot  now.  Lay  those  papers  down  here.  I  may  or  may 
not  write  something  about  this  hereafter.  I  know  you  intend 
to  make  a  point  of  this.  But  go  ahead.  You  have  my  an- 
swer." 

If  the  report  be  correct,  and  it  may  be,  Mr.  Lincoln  betrayed 
irritation.  A  pitfall  was  opened  before  him  and  he  was  asked 
to  tumble  into  it,  and  there  was  a  lack  of  courtesy  in  the  man- 
ner of  his  immediate  refusal.  Critical  people  declared  that  he 
should  have  rejected  the  mud-hole  with  grace  and  dignity.  He 
rejected  it,  at  all  events,  and  with  force,  in  a  written  commu- 
nication, dated  the  22d  of  October,  which  left  the  Opposition 
no  profit  whatever  from  that  speculation.  The  McClellan 
ticket  was  ostentatiously  withdrawn  from  Tennessee,  on  the 
alleged  ground  that  its  supporters  there  could  not  take  the 
oath. 


440  ABEAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK  LIH. 

THE  NATION'S  VERDICT. 

The  Rebellion  Bleeding  to  Death — A  Half  a  Million  More — The  Results  of 
the  Election — Sherman's  March  to  the  Sea — The  Last  Great  Battle  in 
the  West — Changes  in  the  Cabinet — Grant  on  "Executive  Interference." 

THE  course  of  the  civil  war  during  the  summer  and  early 
autumn  of  the  year  1864,  studded  thickly  as  it  was  with  bloody 
battles,  may  be  described  with  fair  exactness  as  a  process  of  at- 
trition. Both  in  the  East  and  West,  the  opposing  armies  were 
grinding  in  almost  continuous  struggle. 

The  military  results,  viewed  strictly  as  such,  were  in  favor 
of  the  Union  armies,  and,  all  the  while,  the  conquered  districts 
put  behind  these  in  their  advances  were  becoming  more  and 
more  hopelessly  lost  forever  to  the  Confederacy.  One  obvious 
fact  needed  no  presentation  in  any  army  bulletin.  The  area 
from  which  the  Eebel  forces  could  draw  recruits  and  supplies 
was  steadily  narrowing.  Whenever  their  armies  now  in  the 
field  should  be  ground  away  and  used  up  by  the  ceaseless  cam- 
paigning forced  upon  them,  no  others  like  them  could  be  ob- 
tained to  take  their  places.  The  end  of  all  drew  nearer  with 
every  charge  they  made,  successful  or  otherwise,  upon  the  wall 
of  steel  and  fire  that  was  pitilessly  closing  in  around  them. 

The  resources  of  the  North  were  not  perceptibly  diminished. 
A  Rebel  officer  of  Texas  cavalry,  captured  and  carried  to  one  of 
the  forts  in  New  York  harbor,  was  paroled  late  one  evening 
and  spent  the  night  at  the  Astor  House,  on  Broadway,  in  New 
York  City.  He  came  out  upon  the  steps  of  the  hotel,  after 
breakfast,  the  next  morning,  and  stood  for  an  hour  or  so,  watch- 
ing the  tide  of  men  flow  past  him.  At  first  he  thought  it  a 


THE  NATION'S  VERDICT.  441 

"  procession"  or  the  result  of  some  uncommon  excitement ;  but 
when  the  truth  dawned  upon  him  that  this  was  only  the  every- 
day rush  of  the  great  city,  he  sat  down  and  wrote  to  his  friends 
at  the  South : 

"  How  they  have  lied  to  us !  It  is  of  no  use.  I  give  it  up. 
There  are  more  men  in  the  North  than  there  were  before  the 
war.  Ours  are  all  gone,  and  it's  about  time  to  stop." 

Mr.  Lincoln  would  gladly  have  seen  the  entire  South  arriv- 
ing at  so  sensible  a  decision ;  but  every  faint  sign  of  promise  in 
any  such  direction  proved  instantly  illusory.  He  was  now  con- 
tending with  the  wounded  pride,  rather  than  the  sane  hope  or 
expectation,  of  a  group  of  men  in  power  at  Richmond,  whose 
indomitable  obstinacy  upheld  them  until  the  gallant  men  whom 
they  forced  to  fight  for  them  were  uselessly  crushed  upon  the 
last  vain  battle-fields  of  the  civil  war. 

Fully  understanding  his  antagonists,  Mr.  Lincoln  prepared 
for  the  worst.  On  the  18th  of  July  he  called  for  five  hundred 
thousand  more  men,  the  number  not  furnished  by  voluntary 
enlistments  to  be  obtained  by  a  draft,  after  September  5. 
Even  his  enemies  were  unable  to  describe  so  unpopular  an  act 
as  an  electioneering  operation  in  behalf  of  his  re  election.  His 
friends  told  him,  plainly,  that  it  might  insure  his  defeat  at  the 
November  polls. 

Perhaps  he  had  more  correctly  gauged  the  temper  and  under- 
standing of  the  people.  At  all  events,  the  summoned  men  came 
forward  rapidly,  a  large  and  valuable  percentage  of  them  being 
veterans  who  had  served  their  time  under  previous  enlistments. 

One  after  another,  every  device  of  the  Opposition  utterly 
broke  down.  Even  before  election-day  it  was  evident  that  no 
danger  of  Democratic  success  remained.  When  the  polls  were 
closed  and  the  votes  were  counted,  it  was  found  that  the  coun- 
try contained  4,015,902  voters,  the  greater  part  of  whom  were 
possible  fighters.  Mr.  Lincoln's  enormous  majority  of  411,428 
fairly  buried  the  McClellan  electoral  tickets.  Kentucky  and 
Delaware,  old  slave-States,  with  New  Jersey,  feebly  testified 


442  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

their  disgust  with  Emancipation,  but  they  were  of  small  account 
in  an  electoral  college  of  233  votes,  wherein  212  were  solidly 
against  them.  There  could  be  raised  no  question  of  the  "  con- 
stitutionality" of  such  an  election.  It  was  the  carefully  formed 
and  solemnly  announced  judgment  of  the  nation.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln had  taken  no  especial  or  undue  means  to  secure  the  politi- 
cal victory,  but  it  was  altogether  such  as  he  had  confidently 
looked  for.  It  was  no  surprise  to  him,  and  it  justified  alike  his 
faith  in  God  and  in  the  general  right-mindedness  of  his  fellow- 
citizens. 

The  people  breathed  more  freely  after  the  election,  in  spite 
of  the  exciting  nature  of  current  news  from  the  army. 

In  the  very  middle  of  November  began  Sherman's  "  march 
to  the  sea,"  and  only  one  month  later,  with  the  tidings  that  he 
had  reached  the  coast,  came  the  defeat  and  demoralization  of 
the  last  great  Rebel  army  in  the  "West,  at  Nashville.  The  fight- 
ing in  Virginia  had  been  hard  and  costly,  upon  both  sides, 
throughout  the  season.  It  included  the  "  battles  of  the  Wil- 
derness," the  siege  of  Petersburg,  the  victories  of  Sheridan  in 
the  Shenandoah  Valley,  and  many  another  fierce  collision  of 
forces,  and  it  ended  with  the  beginning  of  the  final  closing  in 
upon  Richmond  and  Lee's  army. 

There  had  been  three  changes  in  the  Cabinet  during  the  year. 
Mr.  Montgomery  Blair,  Postmaster-General,  after  rendering 
valuable  services,  had  been  succeeded  by  Governor  "William 
Dennison,  of  Ohio.  Edward  Bates,  of  Missouri,  Attorney- 
General,  had  been  succeeded  by  Mr.  Lincoln's  old  personal 
friend,  James  Speed,  of  Kentucky.  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury,  had  been  succeeded  by  "William  Pitt  Fes- 
senden,  of  Maine. 

Neither  of  these  changes  originated  in  the  personal  will  or 
feeling  of  the  President,  or  implied  any  dissatisfaction  on  his 
part  with  the  official  conduct  of  the  gentlemen  who  tendered 
their  resignations.  The  precise  causes,  in  either  case,  have 
ceased  to  be  important  or  generally  interesting.  If  there  were 


THE  NATION'S  VERDICT.  443 

peculiar  circumstances  attending  the  withdrawal  of  Mr.  Chase, 
connected  with  the  course  taken  by  his  friends  prior  to  the 
Baltimore  Convention,  all  cause  for  remembering  them  was  re- 
moved by  the  subsequent  action  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Chief-Justice 
Taney  of  the  Supreme  Court  died  on  the  12th  of  October,  and, 
after  giving  a  full  hearing  to  all  who  chose  to  offer  advice  upon 
the  subject,  the  President  named  Mr.  Chase  as  his  successor. 
The  possible  range  of  human  events  could  not  have  offered  him 
a  better  means  for  testifying  his  repudiation  of  personal  ani- 
mosity and  his  keen  appreciation  of  patriotic  fidelity  and  capa- 
city. 

The  appointment  to  the  Supreme  Court  bench  of  his  old  and 
tried  friend  and  adviser,  David  Davis,  of  Illinois,  was  in  a 
somewhat  different  way  a  similar  testimonial  to  personal  worth, 
conferred  without  regard  to  political  or  any  other  influence  to 
the  contrary. 

If  Mr.  Lincoln's  utterances  and  letters,  during  this  period, 
continually  express  his  increasing  religious  feeling  and  his  con- 
fidence in  an  overruling  Providence,  his  correspondence  with 
army  commanders  testifies  to  his  belief  that  the  conduct  of 
military  affairs  was  at  last  in  the  right  hands.  He  had  his 
doubts,  indeed,  as  to  the  wisdom  of  Sherman's  march  into 
Georgia,  but  he  refused  to  interfere.  In  a  letter  to  General 
Grant  he  said : 

"  The  particulars  of  your  plan  I  neither  know  nor  seek  to 
know.  You  are  vigilant  and  self-reliant;  and,  pleased  with 
this,  I  wish  not  to  obtrude  any  restraints  or  constraints  upon 
yon." 

General  Grant's  reply  contained  this  comprehensive  testi- 
mony: 

"  From  my  first  entrance  into  the  volunteer  service  of  my 
country  to  the  present  day,  I  have  never  had  cause  of  com- 
plaint. .  .  .  Indeed,  since  the  promotion  which  placed  me  in 
command  of  all  the  armies,  and  in  view  of  the  great  responsi- 
bility and  importance  of  success,  I  have  been  astonished  at  the 


444  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

readiness  with  which  everything  asked  for  has  been  yielded, 
without  even  an  explanation  being  asked." 

How  great  a  relief  was  thus  obtained  by  the  weary  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  can  hardly  be  estimated.  How  much  he  was 
in  need  of  such  relief  could  only  be  guessed,  at  the  time,  by 
those  who  loved  him  and  narrowly  noted  the  visible  signs  that 
his  iron  constitution  was  beginning  to  yield  to  the  ceaseless 
drain  and  strain. 

The  overthrow  of  the  Rebellion,  the  return  of  peace,  might 
possibly  bring  him  easier  times.  His  mind  was  stronger  and 
clearer  than  ever,  and  his  education  was  still  going  steadily  for- 
ward ;  but  his  bodily  frame  was  bent  and  at  times  it  drooped  a 
little,  for  the  burdens  yet  upon  him  were  almost  too  much  for 
human  endurance. 


A  VALEDICTORY.  445 


CHAPTEK  LIT. 

A   VALEDICTORY. 

Putting  Emancipation  into  the  Constitution — Sherman  in  South  Carolina — 
The  Peace  Conference  in  Hampton  Roads — Useless  Bloodshed — The 
Second  Inaugural. 

CONGRESS  assembled  on  the  5th  of  December,  1864,  and  the 
President  sent  in  his  Message  the  next  day.  In  this  he  tersely 
reviewed  the  military  and  political  position  of  the  country,  at 
home  and  abroad.  He  called  attention  to  the  manifest  gains 
of  the  country  in  wealth  and  population,  with  reference  to  its 
undiminished  ability  to  continue  the  war.  He  urged  the  adop- 
tion of  an  Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  forever  prohibiting 
human  slavery  in  the  United  States.  He  declared  that  the 
Eebels  could  at  any  time  have  peace  by  simply  laying  down 
their  arms  and  submitting  to  the  national  authority  under  the 
Constitution. 

At  the  previous  session  of  the  same  Congress  an  effort  to 
provide  for  such  a  Constitutional  Amendment  as  Mr.  Lincoln 
advised  had  failed.  The  time  was  not  then  ripe  for  it.  It 
was  now  plain  to  all,  however,  that  the  full  time  had  come, 
and  the  necessary  two-thirds  vote  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives was  obtained  with  moderate  difficulty,  the  Senate  being 
already  secure. 

The  President  publicly  declared  to  a  crowd  who  assembled 
at  the  White  House,  to  congratulate  him,  that  the  Amendment 
seemed  to  him  the  one  thing  needful.  It  completed  and  con- 
firmed the  work  of  the  Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  if  duly 
ratified  by  the  several  States.  He  urged  those  who  heard  him 
to  go  home  and  see  that  this  was  done. 

The  war  was  pressed  with  untiring  vigor,  at  every  point, 


446  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

through  the  month  of  December.  In  January  the  army 
under  General  Sherman  faced  northward,  sweeping  through 
South  Carolina.  Charleston  fell  into  its  hands  like  an  over- 
ripe apple.  No  force  remained  with  any  power  to  stand  in  its 
way,  and  the  Richmond  rulers  began  to  realize  that  their  hour 
was  coming.  Studying  well  the  terms  of  peace  announced  in 
Mr.  Lincoln's  message  to  Congress,  but  not  yet  comprehending 
them,  they  determined  upon  a  last  effort  to  save  something 
from  the  impending  wreck  of  the  Confederacy. 

An  informal  conference  was  obtained,  February  3,  1865, 
upon  a  steamer  in  Hampton  Roads,  between  the  Yice-Presi- 
dent  of  the  Confederacy,  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  R.  M.  T. 
Hunter  and  J.  A.  Campbell,  representing  the  Richmond 
authorities ;  and  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Seward.  The  President's 
assent  to  this  interview  was  given  at  the  request  of  General 
Grant,  but  with  small  hope  of  profitable  results.  None  such 
were  at  all  possible.  No  written  propositions  were  made  or 
offered  on  either  side.  No  formal  report  of  the  conversation 
was  permitted,  but  the  substance  of  it  was  at  once  made  pub- 
lic, both  at  the  North  and  South. 

The  Confederate  commissioners  desired  to  obtain  a  tem- 
porary cessation  of  hostilities,  in  the  nature  of  an  armistice  or 
truce  between  two  independent  powers,  each  reducing  their 
armaments  and  postponing  the  express  terms  and  conditions 
of  a  permanent  peace  and  settlement  to  some  future  time  and 
after  further  consideration  and  negotiation.  It  was  argued 
that  the  passions  of  the  two  peoples  would  thus  have  time  to 
cool,  commercial  and  other  relations  could  at  once  be  resumed, 
and  an  end  could  be  reached  without  further  bloodshed. 
What  the  commissioners  omitted  to  urge  was  that  the  Rebel- 
lion would  thereby  gain  much  more  than  it  could  by  a  sudden 
destruction  of  Sherman's  army. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  replies  were  a  substantial  reproduction  of  the 
doctrines  announced  in  his  message  to  Congress,  with  the  addi- 
tion of  the  Constitutional  Amendment  prohibiting  slavery. 


A   VALEDICTORY.  447 

The  commissioners,  sincere  as  might  be  their  desire  to  ob- 
tain a  season  of  rest  and  recuperation  for  the  Confederacy, 
with  a  covert  acknowledgment  of  its  independent,  treaty-mak- 
ing existence,  or  earnest  as  may  have  been  their  personal  long- 
ing for  peace,  were  neither  prepared  nor  empowered  to  nego- 
tiate for  a  full  surrender.  The  President  neither  could  nor 
would  discuss  any  other  proposition  than  precisely  that,  for  he 
was  acting  solely  as  Commander-in-Chief.  He  really  pos- 
sessed no  other  than  strictly  military  right  and  power  in  the 
premises,  for  it  was  not  a  case  of  a  treaty  with  a  foreign  power. 

A  Georgia  newspaper,  on  the  supposed  authority  of  Mr. 
Stephens,  reports  Mr.  Lincoln  as  declaring  that  he  could  not 
recognize  another  government  inside  the  one  of  which  he  alone 
was  President.  "That,"  he  said,  "would  be  doing  what  you 
so  long  asked  Europe  to  do,  in  vain,  and  be  resigning  the  only 
thing  the  Union  armies  are  fighting  for."  Mr.  Hunter  re- 
plied that  the  recognition  of  the  power  of  Mr.  Davis  to  make 
a  treaty  was  the  first  and  indispensable  step  to  peace. 

This  was  a  mere  play  upon  words,  substituting  the  idea  of  a 
"  treaty  of  peace"  with  the  Richmond  authorities  for  the  other 
idea  of  a  restoration  of  the  peace  of  the  whole  country.  To 
point  his  reply,  and  as  offering  one  precedent  of  a  constitu- 
tional ruler  treating  with  armed  rebels,  Mr.  Hunter  cited  the 
correspondence  of  Charles  the  First  of  England  with  the  Par- 
liament. The  newspaper  report  says : 

"Mr.  Lincoln's  face  wore  that  indescribable  expression 
which  generally  preceded  his  hardest  hits  ;  and  he  remarked : 
'  Upon  questions  of  history  I  must  refer  you  to  Mr.  Seward, 
for  he  is  posted  in  such  things,  and  I  don't  profess  to  be  ;  but 
my  only  distinct  recollection  of  the  matter  is  that  Charles  lost 
his  head.'" 

There  was  an  old  personal  friendship  between  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  Mr.  Stephens,  dating  from  the  time  when  they  were  mem- 
bers of  Congress  together,  and  the  conference  assumed  there- 
from a  tone  of  mutual  ease  and  freedom  from  constraint ;  but 


448  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  gulf  was  too  wide  to  be  bridged  and  too  deep  to  be  filled 
up,  and  the  humane  desires  which  led  to  it  suffered  their  fore- 
doomed disappointment. 

The  Northern  people  understood  the  matter  perfectly,  with 
remarkably  few  exceptions,  and  there  was  never  an  opportunity 
for  the  Southern  people,  generally,  to  know  why  the  awful 
bloodshed  of  the  next  few  weeks  was  uselessly  insisted  upon 
by  their  obstinate  rulers.  Peace  was  not  at  all  denied  or  with- 
held from  them,  and  there  was  no  attainable  object  for  which 
so  many  of  them  should  suffer  or  die.  The  United  States, 
through  its  President,  did  but  continue  its  steady  denial  of  the 
existence  as  a  nation,  and  of  the  treaty-making  independence, 
of  the  Confederacy. 

For  one  month  more  the  war  went  bitterly  on,  from  day  to 
day.  The  end  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  first  term  of  office,  with  the 
beginning  of  a  second  term,  arrived  at  12  o'clock,  noon,  of  the 
4th  of  March,  1865.  The  term  of  Congress  also  expired,  and 
the  session  with  it ;  but  the  President  convened  the  Senate,  at 
once,  for  an  "  extra  session,"  by  proclamation.  For  a  second 
time  Mr.  Lincoln  took  the  oath  of  office  as  President  of  the 
United  States.  It  was  a  grand  and  solemn  occasion,  full  of 
strong  and  striking  contrasts  with  the  same  ceremonial,  in  the 
same  place,  four  years  before. 

The  crowd  which  assembled  was  even  larger,  this  time ;  but 
it  was  a  different  crowd,  with  changed  hearts  and  with  better 
and  higher  hopes.  The  multitude  was  not  the  same.  The  Man 
was  the  same  and  yet  he  was  not,  for  behind  him  as  behind 
them  was  the  fire  of  the  sevenfold  furnace  through  which  God 
had  led  him.  No  smell  of  burning  was  upon  his  garments  of 
integrity  and  faith,  but  his  fetters  had  been  largely  burned  away. 
He  was  almost  ready  to  walk  out  of  the  furnace  and  stand 
before  the  King.  The  oath  of  office  was  administered  by  Chief- 
Justice  Chase ;  the  President  looked  out  for  a  moment,  silently, 
over  the  multitude,  and  then  he  addressed  them,  and  all  other 
men,  as  follows : 


A   VALEDICTORY.  449 

"  Fellow-countrymen :  At  this  second  appearing  to  take  the 
oath  of  the  Presidential  office,  there  is  less  occasion  for  an  ex- 
tended address  than  there  was  at  the  first.  Then,  a  statement 
somewhat  in  detail  of  a  course  to  be  pursued  seemed  fitting  and 
proper.  Now,  at  the  expiration  of  four  years,  during  which 
public  declarations  have  been  constantly  called  forth  on  every 
point  and  phase  of  the  great  contest  which  still  absorbs  the 
attention  and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the  nation,  little  that  is 
new  could  be  presented. 

"The  progress  of  our  arms,  upon  which  all  else  chiefly 
depends,  is  as  well  known  to  the  public  as  to  myself ;  andit*isr 
I  trust,  reasonably  satisfactory  and  encouraging  to  all.  With 
high  hope  for  the  future,  no  prediction  in  regard  to  it  is 
ventured. 

"  On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this,  four  years  ago,  all 
thoughts  were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impending  civil  war. 
All  dreaded  it ;  all  sought  to  avoid  it.  "While  the  inaugural 
address  was  being  delivered  from  this  place,  devoted  altogether 
to  saving  the  Union  without  war,  insurgent  agents  were  in  the 
city  seeking  to  destroy  it  without  war — seeking  to  dissolve  the 
Union  and  divide  the  effects  by  negotiation.  Both  parties 
deprecated  war;  but  one  of  them  would  make  war  rather  than 
let  the  nation  survive,  and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather 
than  let  it  perish :  and  the  war  came. 

"  One  eighth  of  the  whole  population  were  colored  slaves, 
not  distributed  generally  over  the  Union,  but  localized  in  the 
southern  part  of  it.  These  slaves  constituted  a  peculiar 
and  powerful  interest.  All  knew  that  this  interest  was  some- 
how the  cause  of  the  war.  To  strengthen,  extend,  and  perpet- 
uate this  interest  was  the  object  for  which  the  insurgents  would 
rend  the  Union  even  by  war,  while  the  government  claimed 
no  right  to  do  more  than  restrict  the  territorial  enlargement 
of  it. 

"  Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude  or  the 
duration  which  it  has  already  attained.  Neither  anticipated 


450  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

that  the  cause  of  the  conflict  might  cease  with,  or  even  before, 
the  conflict  itself  should  cease.  Each  looked  for  an  easier  tri- 
umph, and  a  result  less  fundamental  and  astounding. 

"  Both  read  the  same  Bible  and  pray  to  the  same  God,  and 
each  invokes  His  aid  against  the  other.  It  may  seem  strange 
that  any  men  should  ask  a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing 
their  bread  from  the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces ;  but  let  us  judge 
not,  that  we  be  not  judged.  The  prayers  of  both  could  not  be 
answered.  That  of  neither  has  been  answered  fully.  The 
Almighty  has  His  own  purposes.  '  Woe  unto  the  world  because 
of  offenses,  for  it  must  needs  be  that  offenses  come ;  but  woe 
unto  that  man  by  whom  the  offense  cometh.'  If  we  shall  sup- 
pose that  American  slavery  is  one  of  these  offenses,  which  in 
the  providence  of  God  must  needs  come,  but  which,  having 
continued  through  his  appointed  time,  he  now  wills  to  remove, 
and  that  he  gives  to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible  war,  as 
the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offense  came,  shall  we  dis- 
cern therein  any  departure  from  those  divine  attributes  which 
the  believers  in  a  living  God  always  ascribe  to  him  ?  Fondly 
do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty  scourge  of 
war  may  soon  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills  that  it  continue 
until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and 
:fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every 
.drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  with  another 
•drawn  with  the  sword, — as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago, 
so  still  it  must  be  said,  (  The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  just 
and  righteous  altogether.' 

"  With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all ;  with  firm- 
ness in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us  strive 
on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in ;  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds ; 
to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his 
widow  and  orphans ;  to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish 
a  just  and  lasting  peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations." 

The  inaugural  address  made  a  deep  impression  upon  the 
nation.  Nothing  at  all  resembling  it  had  ever  been  heard  before. 


A    VALEDICTORY.  451 

A  ruler,  publicly  receiving  the  trust  of  four  years  more  of 
power,  felt  called  upon  to  set  before  the  people  the  result  of 
his  profound  study  and  analysis  of  the  Divine  Providence,  as 
presented  in  the  Scriptures,  and  to  call  upon  them  to  join  him 
in  acknowledging  the  wisdom  and  justice  of  God.  He  also, 
having  many  times  already  called  upon  them  to  pray  with 
him,  deemed  it  well  to  refer  to  the  nature  of  both  prayer  and 
its  answers.  As  for  his  policy  as  a  ruler,  he  was  able,  in  talk- 
ing to  such  a  people,  to  sum  it  all  up  in  a  condensed  paraphrase 
of  the  teachings  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

It  was  not  exactly  a  "  state  paper,"  and  there  was  in  it  a 
strangely  solemn  and  mournful  undertone,  not  so  much  heard 
as  felt.  It  was  a  Farewell  Address  of  a  man  whose  work  was 
nearly  done  and  who,  somehow,  was  dimly  aware  of  that  fact. 

Abraham  Lincoln's  work  was  indeed  done,  for  all  that  even 
then  remained  was  for  the  hands  of  others.  He  had  only  a  few 
short  weeks  to  wait  before  turning  over  all  his  power  and  re- 
sponsibility and  toil  to  those  who  were  to  follow.  At  the  same 
time  his  education  was  completed,  so  far  as  it  could  be  in  this 
present  world.  His  mind  and  soul  had  reached  their  full 
development,  in  a  religious  life  so  unconsciously  intense  and 
absorbing  that  it  could  not  otherwise  than  utter  itself  in  the 
grand  sentences  of  his  last  address  to  the  people.  The  knowl- 
edge had  come,  and  the  faith  had  come,  and  the  charity  had 
come ;  and  with  all  had  come  the  love  of  God,  which  put  away 
all  thought  of  rebellious  resistance  to  the  will  of  God,  leading 
as  in  his  earlier  days  of  trial  to  despair  and  insanity. 


452  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


CHAPTEK  LV. 

AT    LAST. 

A  Proclamation  of  Pardon — Going  to  the  Army — The  Death  Struggle  of 
the  Rebellion — Hemmed  in  by  the  Hunters — The  President  in  Rich- 
mond— Surrenders  of  Lee  and  Johnson — Cessation  of  the  Civil  War. 

MB.  FESSENDEN  retired  from  the  Treasury  Department,  on 
account  of  ill-health,  on  the  6th  of  March,  and  Hugh  McCul- 
loch,  of  Indiana,  was  appointed  in  his  stead;  but  no  other 
changes  were  made  in  the  Cabinet.  The  machinery  of  the  gov- 
ernment was  all  in  good  order  and  worked  right  on,  without  a 
pause  or  a  break.  There  was  no  occasion  for  the  presence  of 
anxious  crowds  of  office-seekers,  as  in  1861.  This  was  not  in  any 
wise  a  new  Administration.  Nevertheless,  for  a  fortnight,  there 
was  an  increase  in  the  rush  and  pressure  of  official  duties.  In 
pursuance  of  an  Act  of  Congress,  a  proclamation  was  issued,  on 
the  llth  of  March,  offering  pardon  to  all  deserters  who  should  at 
once  return  to  their  posts.  A  draft  for  three  hundred  thousand 
men  more  began  on  the  15th,  as  if  in  preparation  for  possible 
needs  of  the  army.  All  matters  were  settled  and  adjusted,  and 
then  the  President,  for  the  first  time,  indulged  himself  in  what 
bore  a  weird  and  somber  likeness  to  a  vacation.  On  the  22d 
of  the  month  he  went  down  the  Potomac  to  City  Point,  to  be 
with  the  army  during  the  closing  struggles  of  the  war.  He 
was  very  weary,  in  heart  and  brain,  and  he  could  there  escape 
from  many  of  his  daily  and  hourly  tormentors.  Not  even  the 
very  good  people  who  only  desired  to  see  him  and  shake  hands 
with  him  could  all  follow  him  to  City  Point. 

General  Sherman's  army  reached  Goldsborough,  North  Caro- 
lina, on  the  22d,  and  the  General  left  it  there  and  came  up  to 
consult  as  to  further  operations. 


AT  LAST.  453 

There  was  to  have  been  a  grand  review  of  the  troops  on  the 
23d,  but  on  that  day  occurred  a  desperate  battle  for  the  posses- 
sion of  Fort  Steadman.  The  Rebels  having  once  taken  it,  they 
were  driven  out  of  it  with  heavy  losses,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  visited 
the  scene  of  the  combat.  The  enthusiasm  with  which  he  was 
everywhere  received  by  the  soldiers  enabled  him  to  say,  "  This 
is  better  than  a  review." 

General  Sherman  arrived  and  attended  a  council  of  war,  held 
on  the  28th,  at  which  were  also  present  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Gen- 
erals Grant,  Sheridan,  Meade,  and  Ord.  He  then  shortly  re- 
joined his  army,  and  the  results  of  the  consultation  followed 
with  terrific  rapidity.  The  operations  under  Grant  began  in  a 
few  hours  after  the  adjournment  of  the  council.  There  was 
some  sharp  fighting  on  the  next  day,  Wednesday.  Thursday 
was  so  stormy  as  somewhat  to  interfere  with  activity,  but 
through  Friday,  Saturday,  and  Sunday  there  was  a  continuous 
succession  of  bloody  engagements  along  the  entire  front.  Mr. 
Lincoln  remained  at  City  Point,  receiving  reports  of  the  pro- 
gress-making and  sending  frequent  dispatches  to  the  people. 
On  Sunday  he  was  able  to  announce  "  the  triumphant  success 
of  our  armies,  after  three  days  of  hard  fighting,  in  which  both 
sides  displayed  unsurpassed  valor." 

The  results  were  indeed  a  triumphant  success,  for  the  army 
under  Lee  had  lost  one  half  of  its  effective  men.  Twelve 
thousand  of  them  were  prisoners  in  the  hands  of  the  victors, 
with  fifty  pieces  of  artillery.  There  was  no  longer  any  possi- 
bility of  holding  Richmond.  There  had  not  been  any,  in 
reality,  for  a  long  time,  and  the  most  obstinate  courage  was  com- 
pelled to  admit  it  now.  The  evacuation  was  made  by  the  Rebel 
authorities,  civil  and  military,  at  once  and  in  haste.  What 
remained  of  the  Rebel  fleet  in  the  James  River  was  blown  up 
before  the  departure,  and  as  little  was  left  of  other  war-material 
as  the  time  and  opportunity  given  for  destruction  or  removal 
permitted. 

The  Union  troops  nearest  the  city  were  those  under  General 


454  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

"Weitzel,  lying  on  the  north  side  of  the  James  River.  On  the 
morning  of  Monday,  April  3,  the  Fifth  Massachusetts  Cav- 
alry was  sent  out  by  General  Weitzel  to  reconnoiter.  They 
quickly  discovered  and  reported  the  flight  of  the  enemy,  and 
the  city  was  entered  and  occupied  by  a  quarter  past  eight 
o'clock.  The  wearied,  half-starved  people  received  the  Union 
troops  with  demonstrations  of  joy.  They  had  had  a  good  deal 
more  than  enough  of  Secession  and  its  consequences. 

As  soon  as  possible  after  receiving  the  news  of  the  evacua- 
tion of  Richmond,  and  on  the  same  day,  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a 
visit  to  the  captured  city.  General  Grant  was  pushing  on 
after  Lee  with  all  the  forces  he  could  move,  and  Sherman  was 
hurrying  up  from  the  South.  There  remained  no  imaginable 
loophole  for  the  escape  of  the  last  Rebel  army,  and  the  war  was 
practically  over. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  carried  by  a  war-steamer  to  a  point  about 
a  mile  below  Richmond,  and  the  rest  of  the  way  in  one  of  the 
steamer's  boats.  Senator  Sumner  was  with  him ;  also  little  Tad; 
and  the  sailors  who  rowed  the  boat  went  ashore  too,  as  a  kind 
of  a  suggestion  of  a  body-guard.  He  did  not  need  any.  On 
foot,  almost  alone,  with  a  dignity  of  simplicity  which  became 
him  wonderfully  well,  he  passed  on  from  street  to  street.  It 
was  something  like  a  dream :  and  yet  all  the  wild  dreams  of  the 
Confederate  leaders  had  forever  vanished  in  their  enforced 
abandonment  of  that  town.  He  was  at  once  recognized  by 
some  of  the  colored  people,  and  the  news  of  his  presence 
spread  like  wildfire.  They  thronged  around  him  with  all  the 
extravagant  expressions  of  joy  and  devotion  of  which  their  ex- 
citement made  them  capable.  General  Weitzel's  men  had  to 
come  and  serve  as  a  police  force  to  clear  the  streets.  Men  and 
women  wept  and  danced  and  shouted  and  praised  God. 

The  President  took  his  hat  off,  reverently,  and  bowed ;  but  he 
could  not  speak,  for  the  tears  were  pouring  down  his  cheeks. 
The  Liberator  had  come  suddenly  among  the  people  whose 
bonds  he  had  broken  and  to  whom  he  had  opened  a  hope  of 


AT  LAST.  455 

free  manhood  and  womanhood  in  the  days  that  were  to  be.  It 
was  an  hour  worth  living  and  dying  for,  and  it  was  given  him 
to  see  it.  He  returned  to  City  Point  that  night,  but  paid  the 
city  another  visit  two  days  later  with  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  Tad, 
accompanied  by  Yice-President  Johnson  and  others.  Some 
of  the  more  prominent  citizens  came  to  see  him,  at  that  time, 
to  discuss  the  future  of  the  State  of  Yirginia.  Among  these 
was  Judge  Campbell,  whom  the  President  had  met  in  the 
peace  conference  in  Hampton  Roads.  This  gentleman  desired 
him  to  authorize  the  assembling  of  the  State  Legislature,  that 
by  distinct  State  action  the  troops  of  Yirginia  might  be  with- 
drawn from  Lee's  army  and  the  present  condition  of  affairs 
accepted.  The  death  of  the  Rebellion  hardly  required  the  ver- 
dict of  such  a  local  "  coroner's  jury"  as  was  thus  asked  for, 
and  the  President  refused  to  issue  any  proclamation  in  the 
premises.  He  afterwards,  however,  wrote  to  General  "Weit- 
zel  from  City  Point,  instructing  him  to  permit  the  assembling 
of  the  legislature.  He  told  him  to  show  the  note  to  Judge 
Campbell,  but  not  to  have  it  made  public.  The  surrender  of 
the  army  under  Lee  rendered  needless  any  withdrawal  of  the 
Yirginia  troops,  but,  much  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  disgust,  Judge 
Campbell  made  public  not  only  the  private  conversation  but 
also  the  contents  of  the  note  to  the  general.  It  was  made  to 
appear  as  an  indication  of  the  President's  purposes  and  policy, 
and  it  unduly  affected  the  terms  made  by  General  Sherman 
with  General  Johnston,  in  the  surrender  of  the  part  of  the  Rebel 
army  commanded  by  the  latter.  This  made  some  trouble  for 
General  Sherman  and  stirred  Mr.  Lincoln  to  a  more  than  ordi- 
nary expression  of  feeling. 

Here  and  there  a  few  remnants  of  Confederate  forces  were 
still  in  arms,  but  nowhere  was  there  anything  properly  to  be 
described  as  an  army.  Such  as  they  were,  the  remnants  rap- 
idly surrendered  or  disbanded,  and  even  the  guerilla  bands 
gave  it  up. 

Orders  were  speedily  issued  from  the  "War  Department  for 


456  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  cessation  of  enlistments  and  for  stopping  the  operation  of 
the  draft,  with  other  orders  looking  to  the  reduction  and  even- 
tual disbandment  of  the  armies. 

Military  restrictions  upon  trade  and  commerce  between  the 
warring  sections  were  removed  as  fast  as  was  consistent  with 
local  requirements.  The  whole  nation  awoke  to  the  glad  cer- 
tainty that  Peace  had  come,  and  that  it  had  come  to  stay,  and 
that  it  had  so  come  as  to  be  worth  the  having.  It  had  come 
by  the  forcible  and  complete  restoration  of  the  authority  of 
the  United  States  over  every  part  and  parcel  of  its  territory 
and  population.  It  had  come  without  treaty,  or  condition,  or 
compromise.  All  questions  of  future  citizenship,  whether  of 
rebels  recently  in  arms  or  of  black  men  recently  in  bondage, 
were  left  in  the  unfettered  control  of  Congress  and  the  Presi- 
dent. There  were  such  questions,  truly,  and  they  presented 
momentous  problems  for  statesmen  to  consider,  but  the  man- 
ner of  the  closing  of  the  war  stripped  all  such  problems  of 
artificial  complications  and  left  them  in  shape  and  condition 
for  swift  and  sure  solution.  Mr.  Lincoln's  views  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  universal  suffrage  were  already  well  known,  and  he  took 
specific  opportunities  for  leaving  them  on  record.  His  desire 
and  hope  was  that  the  colored  men  should  become  citizens  in 
all  respects,  without  even  covert  reference  to  the  tint  of  their 
skins.  He  did  not  remain  long  enough  to  see  his  wishes  grati- 
fied, but  there  was  no  doubt  in  his  mind  as  to  the  policy  to  be 
pursued  by  the  government.  He  well  knew  that  the  processes 
required  for  making  good  citizens,  of  even  white  material,  de- 
manded time  and  opportunity  and  patient  wisdom  for  the 
production  of  tolerable  results,  and  he  believed  that  the  require- 
ments of  the  enfranchised  race  were  measurably  the  same. 
They  too  would  need  both  time  and  opportunity  and  patience 
and  intelligent  help.  The  supervision  of  all  that  work  was  to 
be  put  into  other  hands  than  his,  and  already  he  had  done 
what  he  could. 


PEACE.  457 


CHAPTER  LYI. 

PEACE. 

A  Rejoicing  People — Vanity  and  Revenge  conspire  to  Commit  Murder — 
The  Assassination — The  Mourning  of  a  Mighty  Multitude — Voices 
from  Distant  Lands — The  Teachings  of  a  Great  Life. 

THE  idea,  at  times  the  dread,  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  possible  assas- 
sination had  floated  vaguely  in  the  minds  of  his  friends  from 
the  very  hour  of  his  election.  It  was  again  and  again  suggested 
to  him  in  many  ways,  but  he  invariably  refused  to  give  it  a 
serious  consideration. 

Threats  were  so  freely  made,  as  the  war  went  on,  and  those 
around  him  were  so  reasonably  alarmed,  that  he  was  almost 
compelled  to  justify  with  argument  his  utter  indifference.  Men 
would  need  motives,  he  thought  and  said,  for  the  doing  of  such 
a  deed.  "  If  they  kill  me,  the  next  man  will  be  just  as  bad  for 
them ;  and  in  a  country  like  this,  where  our  habits  are  simple, 
and  must  be,  assassination  is  always  possible,  and  will  come  if 
they  are  determined  upon  it." 

He  came  and  went,  attended  or  unattended,  as  the  case  might 
be,  with  careless  freedom,  not  giving  the  matter  any  further 
consideration. 

With  the  collapse  of  the  rebellion  and  the  return  of  peace,  it 
seemed  as  if  all  supposable  rational  motive  for  assailing  the 
President's  life  had  vanished,  and  with  it  all  peril  of  his  assas- 
sination. 

No  words  can  paint  the  joy  of  the  nation  over  the  fall  of 
Richmond  and  the  surrender  of  Lee's  army.  The  bells  in  all 
the  steeples  rang  like  mad ;  the  cannon  boomed ;  the  people 
met  in  the  churches  to  praise  God ;  men  who  did  not  know 


458  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

each  other  stopped  in  busy  streets  to  shake  hands,  and  turned 
away  with  streaming  eyes  ;  mothers  and  widows  quieted  their 
aching  hearts  in  the  thought  that  their  sons  and  husbands  had 
not  died  in  vain  ;  something  of  charitable  warmth  was  swelling 
and  reaching  out  towards  the  ruined  and  stricken  South.  It 
was  an  hour  of  the  return  of  peace  on  earth  and  good-will  to 
men,  and  any  previous  suggestion  of  possible  murder  was  for- 
gotten. 

Rational  motives  had  indeed  all  passed  away  ;  but  men  had 
failed  to  take  account  of  two  of  the  viler  and  meaner  passions 
whereby  Hell  is  represented  in  the  hearts  of  human  beings, — 
Revenge  and  Vanity.  A  combination  of  these  in  the  minds  of 
several  men  led  to  a  conspiracy  for  the  murder  of  Mr.  Lincoln, 
Mr.  Johnson,  Mr.  Seward,  General  Grant,  and,  perhaps,  some 
others.  It  was  a  very  deliberate  affair,  although  miserably 
planned  and  imperfectly  executed. 

The  Yice-President  escaped  unassailed ;  Mr.  Seward  received 
wounds  from  which  he  soon  recovered ;  and  the  only  part  of 
the  conspiracy  which  fully  attained  its  purpose  was  that  which 
was  put  into  the  base  hands  of  mere  vanity  in  the  person  of  an 
unsuccessful  actor  named  Booth.  This  man  was  not  a  South- 
erner ;  he  was  not  a  soldier ;  he  was  but  a  fair  representative 
of  the  meaner,  because  better  educated,  Northern  "copper- 
head." 

The  Confederacy  was  but  recently  dead  and  had  not  yet 
been  buried.  The  new  order  of  things  was  not  yet  under  way. 
The  President  was  toiling,  day  and  night,  in  the  settlement  of 
numberless  important  questions.  He  was  not  so  strong  as  for- 
merly, and  a  breath  of  recreation  was  more  than  ever  needful. 
He  was  invited  by  the  manager  of  Ford's  Theater,  in  Washing- 
ton, to  witness  the  performance  of  a  play  known  as  "  Our 
American  Cousin,"  on  the  evening  of  the  14th  of  April.  He 
assented,  for  he  was  somewhat  fond  of  the  drama.  He  had 
made  Shakspeare  a  study  to  such  an  extent  that  he  could  sit, 
throughout  the  most  perfect  presentation  of  Falstaff,  without 


PEACE.  459 

one  smile  upon  his  face,  absorbed  in  the  delineation  of  human 
nature  by  the  master,  through  the  actor. 

In  the  present  case  he  was  not  eager,  knowing  nothing  of 
the  play ;  but  he  yielded  to  the  wifely  urgency  of  Mrs.  Lincoln. 
General  Grant  was  to  have  been  of  the  party,  but  had  other 
engagements  more  imperative  which  called  him  out  of  the  city. 
Mr.  Lincoln  passed  the  day  as  usual.  He  made  an  appointment 
to  meet  Hon.  George  Ashmun,  of  Massachusetts,  and  Judge 
Charles  P.  Daly,  of  New  York,  the  next  morning.  He  never 
wasted  much  time  in  dressing,  and  when  Mrs.  Lincoln  came 
for  him  he  was  ready  to  go  with  her.  They  passed  on  their 
way  to  take*  with  them  Miss  Harris  and  Major  Rathbone, 
daughter  and  stepson  of  Senator  Harris,  of  New  York.  It  was 
twenty  minutes  before  nine  o'clock  when  they  entered  the 
crowded  theater,  and  the  throng  rose  and  cheered  enthusiasti- 
cally as  they  passed  on  to  the  "  state  box"  reserved  for  them. 

The  murder  of  the  President  could  have  been  accomplished 
more  safely  and  easily  at  almost  any  other  time  and  place,  but 
the  gratification  of  diseased  vanity  and  morbid  hate  required 
publicity. 

John  Wilkes  Booth,  the  actor  who  had  selected  this  for  his 
last  tragedy,  made  his  preparations  for  escape  with  some  care 
and  cunning,  as  if  unaware  that  the  earth  contained  no  cave 
dark  enough  to  afterwards  conceal  him.  He  provided  himself 
with  a  good  horse,  in  waiting  at  the  rear  of  the  theater,  on 
which  to  ride  away.  He  entered,  looked  in  upon  the  stage 
as  if  with  professional  curiosity,  and  then  worked  his  way 
around  into  the  outer  passage  leading  towards  the  box  occupied 
by  the  President. 

One  of  the  President's  "  messengers"  was  at  the  end  of  an 
inner  passage,  leading  to  the  box-door,  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
venting undue  intrusions.  To  him  Booth  presented  a  card, 
stating  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  sent  for  him.  On  that  lie  he  was 
permitted  to  pass.  After  overcoming  this  slight  barrier  there 
remained  no  hindrance  to  the  commission  of  the  murder,  for 


460  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  President  sat  quietly  in  an  arm-chair,  entirely  absorbed  in 
the  play. 

Booth  had  a  two-edged  dagger  and  a  single-barreled  Der- 
ringer pistol,  carrying  a  heavy  ball.  "With  the  latter  he  took 
full  aim  at  the  back  of  the  head  so  near  him  and  pulled  the 
trigger.  The  bullet  entered  the  brain,  so  weary  with  long  toil 
for  others  :  but  the  President  hardly  stirred  in  his  chair.  The 
report  of  the  pistol  rang  through  the  house,  but  for  several 
heart-beats  no  man  seems  to  have  guessed  what  it  meant. 

Major  Rathbone  was  the  first  to  comprehend  the  matter,  and 
he  instantly  closed  with  Booth,  but  was  thrown  off  with  a 
wound  in  his  arm  from  the  dagger. 

Freeing  himself  from  the  grasp  of  Rathbone,  Booth  sprang 
to  the  front  of  the  box  and  leaped  upon  the  stage  below.  It 
was  but  a  step  down,  but  his  spurs  caught  in  the  American  flag 
with  which  the  box  was  draped,  and  he  half  fell.  Regaining 
his  feet,  he  faced  the  audience  for  a  moment,  dagger  in  hand, 
spouting  theatrically  the  State  motto  of  Virginia,  "  Sic  semper 
tyrannis"  and  added,  "  The  South  is  avenged !" 

He  was  familiar  with  the  exits  of  the  stage.  It  was  easy  to 
dash  aside  the  few  bewildered  actors  and  actresses  in  his  way. 
Only  one  man,  a  gentleman  named  Stewart,  was  quick-witted 
enough  to  spring  upon  the  stage  and  follow  him,  and  he  was  too 
late  in  doing  so.  The  assassin  reached  his  horse  and  rode  away, 
escaping  for  the  hour,  only  to  be  hunted  down  and  shot  in  a 
burning  barn  in  Maryland,  some  twelve  days  after  the  murder. 

It  was  all  the  work  of  a  few  seconds.  The  fact  that  the 
President  had  been  shot  fell  upon  the  audience  with  awful 
power.  Women  screamed  incoherently  or  fainted  away.  Men 
stood  white-faced  with  dismay  and  wrath,  or  blasphemed,  or 
swore  revenge.  All  was  uproar  and  confusion. 

The  leading  actress,  Laura  Keene,  stepped  to  the  front  of 
the  stage  and  begged  the  audience  to  be  calm.  Then  she  en- 
tered the  President's  box  with  the  water  Miss  Harris  had  been 
calling  for,  and  with  stimulants.  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  at  once  and 


PEACE.  461 

entirely  overcome.  She  had  never  shared  her  husband's  indif- 
ference to  his  perpetual  peril,  but  the  shock  was  none  the  less 
severe  when  it  now  smote  upon  her  so  suddenly. 

The  evil  deed  had  been  completely  done.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
unconscious  from  the  moment  when  the  bullet  struck  him. 
There  was  little  need  for  the  verdict  of  the  medical  men  who 
gathered  so  quickly  around  him,  that  the  hurt  was  surely  fatal, 
and  the  news  went  out  to  the  country  untempered  by  any  de- 
lusive hope. 

There  had  been  a  mutual  agreement  between  the  conspira- 
tors as  to  the  time  for  striking,  and  the  less  successful  assault 
upon  Mr.  Seward  was  made  at  precisely  the  same  hour.  Inci- 
dental circumstances  prevented  the  remainder  of  the  plot  from 
even  attempted  execution. 

The  unconscious  President  was  carried  to  a  private  residence, 
near  the  theater ;  and  here,  at  twenty-two  minutes  past  seven 
o'clock,  April  15,  1865,  the  last  tokens  of  life  disappeared. 

There  was  bitter  grief  among  the  statesmen  and  generals 
who  sobbed  around  that  death-bed.  Bewildering  and  agonizing 
was  the  sorrow  of  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  her  sons,  in  the  room  ad- 
joining. These  were  of  the  fallen  ruler's  flesh  and  blood  and 
life.  Those  were  the  associates  and  co-workers  of  his  long  toil 
and  trial.  It  was  but  natural  that  they  should  break  down, 
stunned  and  staggering,  under  such  a  blow.  The  greater  mar- 
vel was  in  the  immediate  effect  upon  the  nation.  It  was  as  if 
there  had  been  a  death  in  every  house  throughout  the  land. 

The  day  before  the  murder,  the  North  had  been  rejoicing, 
even  beyond  the  bounds  of  sober  reason.  Even  the  South  was 
drawing  long  breaths  of  relief  and  hope.  By  both  sections 
alike  the  awful  news  was  heard  with  a  shudder  and  with  a  mo- 
mentary spasm  of  unbelief.  Then  followed  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  spectacles  in  the  history  of  the  human  race,  for 
there  is  nothing  else  at  all  like  it  on  record.  Bells  had  tolled 
before  at  the  death  of  a  loved  ruler,  but  never  did  all  bells  toll 
so  mournfully  as  they  did  that  day.  Business  ceased,  except- 


462  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ing  the  purchase  of  crape.  Men  came  together  in  public  meet- 
ings as  if  by  a  common  impulse,  and  party  lines  and  sectional 
hatreds  seemed  to  be  obliterated.  It  is  true  that  here  and  there 
an  angry  voice  called  aloud  for  vengeance.  It  is  true  that  a 
few  bitter-hearted  brutes  declared  their  infernal  gratification, 
even  at  peril  of  their  miserable  lives.  The  former  calmed 
themselves  to  learn  .the  holier  lessons  of  the  hour,  and  the  lat- 
ter were  too  few  and  insignificant  to  add  a  black  drop  of  dis- 
grace to  the  cup  of  the  national  sorrow. 

The  intelligent  people  of  the  Southern  States  felt  that  their 
stage-mad  "  avenger"  had  inflicted  upon  them  a  fresh  disaster, 
and  they  both  publicly  and  privately  expressed  their  anger  and 
regret. 

Their  feeling  is  well  illustrated  by  the  action  of  the  Masonic 
fraternity  in  Arkansas,  locally  known  as  the  "  Eeb.  Masons." 
They  were  the  first  to  call  and  hold  a  meeting  to  declare  and 
emphasize  their  condemnation  and  sorrow,  and  a  hall  in  Little 
Eock,  the  State  capital,  was  well  filled  with  those  who  as- 
sembled. In  large  part  they  were  ex-Confederate  soldiers, 
many  of  whom  still  wore  remnants  of  their  army  uniforms, 
and  they  listened  to  a  funeral  oration  upon  Abraham  Lincoln 
from  the  lips  of  a  well-known  Union  man,  of  the  Masonic  fra- 
ternity. It  was  but  twelve  hours  after  the  news  of  the  murder 
reached  Little  Eock  by  telegraph. 

The  assassination  took  place  on  Friday  evening,  and  on  the 
Sunday  following  funeral  services  were  held  in  all  the  churches 
in  the  land,  and  every  church  was  draped  in  mourning.  The 
ingenuity  of  grief  seemed  to  exhaust  itself  in  vain  attempts  for 
adequate  expression.  ^Nowhere  was  there  any  visible  sign  of 
disorder. 

A  vague  dread  of  what  might  possibly  come  turned  every 
man  into  a  self-appointed  guardian  of  the  public  peace,  robbed 
of  its  Constitutional  protector.  The  feeling  in  the  army  was 
intense ;  but  the  sternest  soldier  felt  that  no  act  of  stupid  re- 
venge could  honor  the  memory  of  a  man  like  Lincoln.  ISTot 
one  such  act  was  undertaken  or  committed,  then  or  afterwards. 


PEACE.  463 

The  punishment  of  the  conspirators,  under  due  form  of  law, 
was  ordinary  justice  and  not  mere  vengeance.  These  were  all 
captured  and  received  varying  sentences,  according  to  their 
several  adjudged  degrees  of  crime. 

After  Mr.  Lincoln's  death,  his  body  was  removed  to  the 
White  House  and  embalmed.  A  gathering  of  Congressmen 
and  other  public  men,  at  the  Capitol,  on  Monday,  made  arrange- 
ments for  funeral  services  on  Wednesday.  Pall-bearers  were 
named,  and  also  a  Congressional  Committee,  representing  the 
several  States,  to  accompany  the  remains  to  their  resting-place 
in  Illinois. 

The  funeral  services,  on  Wednesday,  were  held  in  the  East 
Room  of  the  Executive  Mansion,  and  from  this  the  coffined 
body  was  borne  in  solemn  procession  to  the  catafalque  prepared 
for  it  in  the  rotunda  of  the  Capitol.  Endless  crowds  had 
poured  through  the  East  Room,  while  the  body  remained 
there,  each  passer  bending  to  take  a  last  look  at  the  silent  face 
the  nation  had  loved  so  well.  The  same  sad  stream  poured  on 
through  the  corridors  of  the  Capitol,  for  none  was  willing  to 
fail  of  that  final  opportunity,  and  they  came  from  all  the  region 
round  about. 

On  the  21st  of  the  month  the  funeral-train  left  Washing- 
ton ;  and,  through  all  the  fifteen  hundred  miles  of  its  route  to 
Illinois,  the  mournful  pageant  of  its  reception  by  the  people 
surpasses  all  power  of  words  for  its  description.  Slowly  the 
train  proceeded,  from  city  to  city,  between  almost  continuous 
lines  of  sorrowing  multitudes  doing  last  honors  to  their  beloved 
Chief  Magistrate,  whose  hold  upon  their  hearts  they  had  not 
known  till  they  had  lost  him. 

With  the  remains  of  Mr.  Lincoln  were  carried  those  of  his 
beloved  son  Willie.  Father  and  child  had  gone  Home,  for- 
ever, and  their  earthly  bodies  were  borne  homeward  side  by 
side. 

Springfield,  Illinois,  was  reached  on  the  morning  of  the  3d  of 
May.  The  grief  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  oldest  friends  and  near  neigh- 


464  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

bors  could  hardly  exceed  that  of  many  who  had  never  heard  him 
utter  a  word  nor  at  any  time  had  looked  upon  his  living  face. 
A  day  later,  in  the  presence  of  a  great  multitude,  the  coffin 
was  placed  in  a  tomb  prepared  for  it  in  Oak  Ridge  Cemetery, 
near  the  city,  with  appropriate  ceremonials  and  oratory. 

A  sort  of  echo  of  the  National  sorrow  came  back  from 
almost  every  corner  of  the  world,  and  many  of  the  tones  and 
expressions  were  only  less  surprising  than  were  their  sources. 
America  was  at  once  on  better  terms  with  Europe,  especially, 
all  in  a  day,  when  the  voices  of  the  trans- Atlantic  press  were 
printed  in  our  own  newspapers,  side  by  side  with  the  official 
condolences  of  foreign  potentates.  The  public  uses  of  the  life 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  terminate  until  this  last  service  had 
been  effected  by  his  death,  and  the  value  of  it  was  by  no  means 
insignificant. 

This  is  all.  The  lessons  of  such  a  lif e  are  very  plainly  to  be 
read.  They  should  be  made  familiar  to  the  heart  and  brain  of 
every  American.  Every  soul  born  in  the  United  States,  or 
coming  to  dwell  here,  should  study  them  well  and  so  learn  to 
understand  and  love  the  country  wherein  alone  on  earth  such 
a  life  is  possible.  It  is  a  land  which  has  been  rich  in  noble  men 
and  well-spent  lives,  both  of  men  and  women ;  but  there  has 
been  no  other  just  like  this.  Among  all  there  is  not  one  re- 
corded which  is  so  well  adapted  to  teach  and  enforce  these 
things :  that  the  lowliest  may  hopefully  strive  for  the  highest 
elevation ;  that  the  most  ignorant,  under  every  imaginable  dis- 
advantage, may  successfully  seek  for  knowledge  and  its  uses ; 
that  the  most  skeptical,  broken-hearted,  hopeless,  despairing  of 
all  men,  may  go  on  to  do  his  duty  to  himself  and  others,  turn- 
ing his  eyes  and  lifting  his  hands  to  God  and  drawing  surely 
nearer  to  Him. 

Whatever  were  his  failings,  faults,  and  flaws,  this  was  the 
unselfish,  truth-seeking  and  truth-serving  life  of  ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN. 


APPENDIX. 


A  FEW  PIVOTAL  SPEECHES  AND  LETTERS  OF  MR.  LINCOLN 
ALLUDED  TO  IN  THIS  VOLUME. 


SPEECH, 

Delivered  at  Springfield,  HI.,  June  17, 1858. 

THE   FIEST  AFTER  ME.    LINCOLN'S  NOMINATION    FOE    THE   UNITED 
STATES   SENATOESHIP  FEOM  ILLINOIS.       (See   Ch.  XXIII.) 

ME.  PEESIDENT,  AND  GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  CONVENTION: — If 
we  could  first  know  where  we  are,  and  whither  we  are  tending, 
we  could  better  judge  what  to  do,  and  how  to  do  it.  We  are 
now  far  into  the  fifth  year  since  a  policy  was  initiated  with  the 
avowed  object,  and  confident  promise,  of  putting  an  end  to 
slavery  agitation.  Under  the  operation  of  that  policy  that  agi- 
tation has  not  only  not  ceased,  but  has  constantly  augmented. 
In  my  opinion,  it  will  not  cease  until  a  crisis  shall  have  been 
reached  and  passed.  "A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand."  I  believe  this  Government  cannot  endure  permanently 
half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dis- 
solved, I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall,  but  I  do  expect  it  will 
cease  to  be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the 
other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further 
spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction;  or  its  advo- 
cates will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all 
the  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as  South. 

Have  we  no  tendency  to  the  latter  condition  ? 

Let  any  one  who  doubts  carefully  contemplate  that  now  almost 


466  APPENDIX. 

complete  legal  combination — piece  of  machinery,  so  to  speak — 
compounded  of  the  Nebraska  doctrine  and  the  Dred  Scott  decis- 
ion. Let  him  consider  not  only  what  work  the  machinery  is 
adapted  to  do,  and  how  well  adapted;  but  also  let  him  study  the 
history  of  its  construction,  and  trace,  if  he  can,  or  rather  fail,  if 
he  can,  to  trace,  the  evidences  of  design  and  concert  of  action 
among  its  chief  architects  from  the  beginning. 

The  new  year  of  1854  found  slavery  excluded  from  more  than 
half  the  States  by  State  Constitutions,  and  from  most  of  the 
national  territory  by  Congressional  prohibition.  Four  days 
later  commenced  the  struggle  which  ended  in  repealing  that 
Congressional  prohibition.  This  opened  all  the  national  terri- 
tory to  slavery,  and  was  the  first  point  gained. 

But  so  far  Congress  only  had  acted;  and  an  indorsement  by 
the  people,  real  or  apparent,  was  indispensable,  to  save  the  point 
already  gained  and  give  chance  for  more. 

This  necessity  had  not  been  overlooked,  but  had  been  provided 
for,  as  well  as  might  be,  in  the  notable  argument  of  "  squatter 
sovereignty,"  otherwise  called  "  sacred  right  of  self-government;" 
which  latter  phrase,  though  expressive  of  the  only  rightful  basis 
of  any  government,  was  so  perverted  in  this  attempted  use  of  it 
.as  to  amount  to  just  this:  That  if  any  one  man  choose  to  enslave 
another ',  no  third  man  shall  be  allowed  to  object.  That  argu- 
ment was  incorporated  into  the  Nebraska  bill  itself,  in  the  lan- 
guage which  follows:  "  It  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of 
this  act  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any  Territory  or  State,  nor 
to  exclude  it  therefrom;  but  to  leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly 
free  to  form  and  regulate  their  domestic  institutions  in  their  own 
way,  subject  only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 
Then  opened  the  roar  of  loose  declamation  in  favor  of  "  squatter 
sovereignty,"  and  "  sacred  right  of  self-government."  "  But," 
said  opposition  members,  "let  us  amend  the  bill  so  as  to  ex- 
pressly declare  that  the  people  of  the  Territory  may  exclude 
slavery."  "Not  we," said  the  friends  of  the  measure;  and  down 
they  voted  the  amendment. 

While  the  Nebraska  bill  was  passing  through  Congress,  a  law- 
case,  involving  the  question  of  a  negro's  freedom,  by  reason  of 
his  owner  having  voluntarily  taken  him  first  into  a  free  State  and 


APPENDIX.  467 

then  into  a  Territory  covered  by  the  Congressional  prohibition, 
and  held  him  as  a  slave  for  a  long  time  in  each,  was  passing 
through  the  United  States  Circuit  Court  for  the  District  of  Mis- 
souri; and  both  Nebraska  bill  and  lawsuit  were  brought  to  a  de- 
cision in  the  same  month  of  May,  1854.  The  negro's  name  was 
'  'Dred  Scott,"  which  name  now  designates  the  decision  finally 
made  in  the  case.  Before  the  then  next  Presidential  election, 
the  law-case  came  to,  and  was  argued  in,  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States;  but  the  decision  of  it  was  deferred  until  after 
the  election.  Still,  before  the  election,  Senator  Trumbull,  on  the 
floor  of  the  Senate,  requested  the  leading  advocate  of  the  Ne- 
braska bill  to  state  his  opinion  whether  the  people  of  a  Territory 
can  constitutionally  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits;  and  the 
latter  answers:  "That  is' a  question  for  the  Supreme  Court." 

The  election  came.  Mr.  Buchanan  was  elected,  and  the  in- 
dorsement, such  as  it  was,  secured.  That  was  the  second  point 
gained.  The  indorsement,  however,  fell  short  of  a  clear  popular 
majority  by  nearly  four  hundred  thousand  votes,  and  so,  per- 
haps, was  not  overwhelmingly  reliable  and  satisfactory.  The 
outgoing  President,  in  his  last  annual  message,  as  impressively 
as  possible  echoed  back  upon  the  people  the  weight  and  author- 
ity of  the  indorsement.  The  Supreme  Court  met  again ;  did  not 
announce  their  decision,  but  ordered  a  re-argument.  The  Presi- 
dential inauguration  came,  and  still  no  decision  of  the  court;  but 
the  incoming  President,  in  his  inaugural  address,  fervently  ex- 
horted the  people  to  abide  by  the  forthcoming  decision,  what- 
ever it  might  be.  Then,  in  a  few  days,  came  the  decision. 

The  reputed  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill  finds  an  early  occasion 
to  make  a  speech  at  this  capital,  indorsing  the  Dred  Scott  decis- 
ion, and  vehemently  denouncing  all  opposition  to  it.  The  new 
President,  too,  seizes  the  early  occasion  of  the  Silliman  letter  to 
indorse  and  strongly  construe  that  decision,  and  to  express  his 
astonishment  that  any  different  view  had  ever  been  entertained. 

At  length  a  squabble  springs  up  between  the  President  and 
the  author  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  on  the  mere  question  of  fact, 
whether  the  Lecompton  Constitution  was  or  was  not,  in  any  just 
sense,  made  by  the  people  of  Kansas;  and  in  that  quarrel  the 
latter  declares  that  all  he  wants  is  a  fair  vote  for  the  people,  and 


468  APPENDIX. 

that  he  cares  not  whether  slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up.  I 
do  not  understand  his  declaration,  that  he  cares  not  whether 
slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up,  to  be  intended  by  him  other 
than  as  an  apt  definition  of  the  policy  he  would  impress  upon  the 
public  mind — the  principle  for  which  he  declares  he  has  suffered 
so  much,  and  is  ready  to  suffer  to  the  end.  And  well  may  he 
cling  to  that  principle.  If  he  has  any  parental  feeling,  well  may 
he  cling  to  it.  That  principle  is  the  only  shred  left  of  his  origi- 
nal Nebraska  doctrine.  Under  the  Dred  Scott  decision  "  squat- 
ter sovereignty"  squatted  out  of  existence,  tumbled  down,  like 
temporary  scaffolding— like  the  mold  at  the  foundry  served 
through  one  blast  and  fell  back  into  loose  sand — helped  to  carry 
an  election,  and  then  was  kicked  to  the  winds.  His  late  joint 
struggle  with  the  Republicans,  against  the  Lecompton  Constitu- 
tion, involves  nothing  of  the  original  Nebraska  doctrine.  That 
struggle  was  made  on  a  point — the  right  of  a  people  to  make 
their  own  constitution — upon  which  he  and  the  Republicans 
have  never  differed. 

The  several  points  of  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  in  connection 
with  Senator  Douglas's  "  care  not"  policy,  constitute  the  piece 
of  machinery,  in  its  present  state  of  advancement.  This  was  the 
third  point  gained.  The  working  points  of  that  machinery  are: 

First.  That  no  negro  slave,  imported  as  such  from  Africa,  and 
no  descendant  of  such  slave,  can  ever  be  a  citizen  of  any  State, 
in  the  sense  of  that  term  as  used  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  This  point  is  made  in  order  to  deprive  the  negro,  in 
every  possible  event,  of  the  benefit  of  that  provision  of  the 
United  States  Constitution  which  declares  that  "  The  citizens  of 
each  State  shall  be  entitled  to  all  privileges  and  immunities  of 
citizens  in  the  several  States." 

Secondly.  That,  "subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,"  neither  Congress  nor  a  Territorial  Legislature  can  ex- 
clude slavery  from  any  United  States  Territory.  This  point  is 
made  in  order  that  individual  men  may  fill  up  the  Territories 
with  slaves  without  danger  of  losing  them  as  property,  and  thus 
to  enhance  the  chances  of  permanency  to  the  institution  through 
all  the  future. 

Thirdly.  That  whether  the  holding  a  negro  in  actual  slavery 


APPENDIX.  469 

in  a  free  State  makes  him  free,  as  against  the  holder,  the  United 
States  courts  will  not  decide,  but  will  leave  to  be  decided  by  the 
courts  of  any  slave-State  the  negro  may  be  forced  into  by  the 
master.  This  point  is  made,  not  to  be  pressed  immediately;  but, 
if  acquiesced  in  for  a  while,  and  apparently  indorsed  by  the 
people  at  an  election,  then  to  sustain  the  logical  conclusion  that 
what  Dred  Scott's  master  might  lawfully  do  with  Dred  Scott,  in 
the  free  State  of  Illinois,  every  other  master  may  lawfully  do 
with  any  other  one,  or  one  thousand  slaves,  in  Illinois,  or  in  any 
other  free  State. 

Auxiliary  to  all  this,  and  working  hand  in  hand  with  it,  the 
Nebraska  doctrine,  or  what  is  left  of  it,  is  to  educate  and  mold 
public  opinion,  at  least  Northern  public  opinion,  not  to  care 
whether  slavery  is  voted  down  or  voted  up.  This  shows  exactly 
where  we  now  are;  and  partially,  also,  whither  we  are  tending. 

It  will  throw  additional  light  on  the  latter,  to  go  back,  and  run 
the  mind  over  the  string  of  historical  facts  already  stated. 
Several  things  will  now  appear  less  dark  and  mysterious  than 
they  did  when  they  were  transpiring.  The  people  were  to  be 
left  "perfectly  free,"  "subject  only  to  the  Constitution."  What 
the  Constitution  had  to  do  with  it,  outsiders  could  not  then  see. 
Plainly  enough  now,  it  was  an  exactly  fitted  niche  for  the  Dred 
Scott  decision  to  afterward  come  in,  and  declare  the  perfect  free- 
dom of  the  people  to  be  just  no  freedom  at  all.  Why  was  the 
amendment,  expressly  declaring  the  right  of  the  people,  voted 
down?  Plainly  enough  now:  the  adoption  of  it  would  have 
spoiled  the  niche  for  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  Why  was  the 
court  decision  held  up  ?  Why  even  a  Senator's  individual  opin- 
ion withheld  till  after  the  Presidential  election  ?  Plainly  enough 
now:  the  speaking  out  then  would  have  damaged  the  perfectly 
free  argument  upon  which  the  election  was  to  be  carried.  Why 
the  outgoing  President's  felicitation  on  the  indorsement?  Why 
the  delay  of  a  re-argument  ?  Why  the  incoming  President's 
advance  exhortation  in  favor  of  the  decision  ?  These  things 
look  like  the  cautious  patting  and  petting  of  a  spirited  horse 
preparatory  to  mounting  him,  when  it  is  dreaded  that  he  may 
give  the  rider  a  fall.  And  why  the  hasty  after-indorsement  of 
the  decision  by  the  President  and  others  ? 


470  APPENDIX. 

We  cannot  absolutely  know  that  all  these  exact  adaptations 
are  the  result  of  preconcert.  But  when  we  see  a  lot  of  framed 
timbers,  different  portions  of  which  we  know  have  been  gotten 
out  at  different  times  and  places,  and  by  different  workmen — 
Stephen,  Franklin,  Roger,  and  James,  for  instance — and  when 
we  see  these  timbers  joined  together,  and  see  they  exactly  make 
the  frame  of  a  house  or  a  mill,  all  the  tenons  and  mortises  ex- 
actly fitting,  and  all  the  lengths  and  proportions  of  the  different 
pieces  exactly  adapted  to  their  respective  places,  and  not  a  piece 
too  many  or  too  few — not  omitting  even  scaffolding — or,  if  a 
single  piece  be  lacking,  we  see  the  place  in  the  frame  exactly 
fitted  and  prepared  yet  to  bring  such  piece  in — in  such  a  case, 
we  find  it  impossible  not  to  believe  that  Stephen  and  Frank- 
lin and  Roger  and  James  all  understood  one  another  from  the 
beginning,  and  all  worked  upon  a  common  plan  or  draft  drawn 
up  before  the  first  blow  was  struck. 

It  should  not  be  overlooked  that,  by  the  Nebraska  bill,  the 
people  of  a  State,  as  well  as  Territory,  were  to  be  left "  perfectly 
free,"  "subject  only  to  the  Constitution."  Why  mention  a 
State?  They  were  legislating  for  Territories,  and  not  for  or 
about  States.  Certainly,  the  people  of  a  State  are  and  ought  to 
be  subject  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States;  but  why  is 
mention  of  this  lugged  into  this  merely  territorial  law  ?  Why 
are  the  people  of  a  Territory  and  the  people  of  a  State  therein 
lumped  together,  and  their  relation  to  the  Constitution  therein 
treated  as  being  precisely  the  same  ?  While  the  opinion  of  the 
court,  by  Chief -Justice  Taney,  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  and  the 
separate  opinions  of  all  the  concurring  Judges,  expressly  declare 
that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  neither  permits  Con- 
gress nor  a  Territorial  Legislature  to  exclude  slavery  from  any 
United  States  Territory,  they  all  omit  to  declare  whether  or  not 
the  same  Constitution  permits  a  State,  or  the  people  of  a  State, 
to  exclude  it.  Possibly,  this  is  a  mere  omission;  but  who  can 
be  quite  sure,  if  McLean  or  Curtis  had  sought  to  get  into  the 
opinion  a  declaration  of  unlimited  power  in  the  people  of  a  State 
to  exclude  slavery  from  their  limits,  just  as  Chase  arid  Mace 
sought  to  get  such  declaration,  in  behalf  of  the  people  of  a  Ter- 
ritory, into  the  Nebraska  bill ; — I  ask,  who  can  be  quite  sure  that 


APPENDIX.  471 

it  would  not  have  been  voted  down  in  the  one  case,  as  it  had 
been  in  the  other  ?  The  nearest  approach  to  the  point  of  declar- 
ing the  power  of  a  State  over  slavery  is  made  by  Judge  Nelson. 
He  approaches  it  more  than  once,  using  the  precise  idea,  and 
almost  the  language,  too,  of  the  Nebraska  act.  On  one  occasion, 
his  exact  language  is,  "  Except  in  cases  where  the  power  is  re- 
strained by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  law  of  the 
State  is  supreme  over  the  subject  of  slavery  within  its  jurisdic- 
tion." In  what  cases  the  power  of  the  States  is  so  restrained  by 
the  United  States  Constitution  is  left  an  open  question,  pre- 
cisely as  the  same  question  as  to  the  restraint  on  the  power  of 
the  Territories,  was  left  open  in  the  Nebraska  act.  Put  this 
and  that  together,  and  we  have  another  nice  little  niche,  which 
we  may,  ere  long,  see  filled  with  another  Supreme  Court  de- 
cision, declaring  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  does 
not  permit  a  State  to  exclude  slavery  from  its  limits.  And  this 
may  especially  be  expected,  if  the  doctrine  of  "  care  not  whether 
slavery  be  voted  down  or  voted  up"  shall  gain  upon  the  public 
mind  sufficiently  to  give  promise  that  such  a  decision  can  be 
maintained  when  made. 

Such  a  decision  is  all  that  slavery  now  lacks  of  being  alike 
lawful  in  all  the  States.  Welcome  or  unwelcome,  such  decision 
is  probably  coming,  and  will  soon  be  upon  us,  unless  the  power 
of  the  present  political  dynasty  shall  be  met  and  overthrown. 
We  shall  lie  down  pleasantly  dreaming  that  the  people  of  Mis- 
souri are  on  the  verge  of  making  their  State  free,  and  we  shall 
awake  to  the  reality,  instead,  that  the  Supreme  Court  has  made 
Illinois  a  slave-State.  To  meet  and  overthrow  the  power  of 
that  dynasty  is  the  work  now  before  all  those  who  would  pre- 
vent that  consummation.  That  is  what  we  have  to  do.  How 
can  we  best  do  it  ? 

There  are  those  who  denounce  us  openly  to  their  own  friends, 
and  yet  whisper  us  softly  that  Senator  Douglas  is  the  aptest  in- 
strument there  is  with  which  to  effect  that  object.  They  wish 
us  to  infer  all,  from  the  fact  that  he  now  has  a  little  quarrel 
with  the  present  head  of  the  dynasty;  and  that  he  has  regularly 
voted  with  us  on  a  single  point,  upon  which  he  and  we  have 
never  differed.  They  remind  us  that  he  is  a  great  man,  and  that 


472  APPENDIX. 

the  largest  of  us  are  very  small  ones.  Let  this  be  granted.  But 
"  a  living  dog  is  better  than  a  dead  lion."  Judge  Douglas,  if 
not  a  dead  lion,  for  this  work,  is  at  least  a  caged  and  toothless 
one.  How  can  he  oppose  the  advances  of  slavery  ?  He  don't 
care  anything  about  it.  His  avowed  mission  is  impressing  the 
"  public  heart"  to  care  nothing  about  it.  A  leading  Douglas 
Democratic  newspaper  thinks  Douglas's  superior  talent  will  be 
needed  to  resist  the  revival  of  the  African  slave-trade.  Does 
Douglas  believe  an  effort  to  revive  that  trade  is  approaching  ? 
He  has  not  said  so.  Does  he  really  think  so  ?  But  if  it  is,  how 
can  he  resist  it  ?  For  years  he  has  labored  to  prove  it  a  sacred 
right  of  white  men  to  take  negro  slaves  into  the  new  Territories. 
Can  he  possibly  show  that  it  is  less  a  sacred  right  to  buy  them 
where  they  can  be  bought  cheapest  ?  And  unquestionably  they 
can  be  bought  cheaper  in  Africa  than  in  Virginia.  He  has  done 
all  in  his  power  to  reduce  the  whole  question  of  slavery  to  one 
of  a  mere  right  of  property;  and  as  such,  how  can  he  oppose 
the  foreign  slave-trade — how  can  he  refuse  that  trade  in  that 
"property"  shall  be  "perfectly  free" — unless  he  does  it  as  a 
protection  to  the  home  production  ?  And  as  the  home  pro- 
ducers will  probably  not  ask  the  protection,  he  will  be  wholly 
without  a  ground  of  opposition. 

Senator  Douglas  holds,  we  know,  that  a  man  may  rightfully 
be  wiser  to-day  than  he  was  yesterday — that  he  may  rightfully 
change  when  he  finds  himself  wrong.  But  can  we,  for  that 
reason,  run  ahead,  and  infer  that  he  will  make  any  particular 
change,  of  which  he  himself  has  given  no  intimation  ?  Can  we 
safely  base  our  action  upon  any  such  vague  inference  ?  Now, 
as  ever,  I  wish  not  to  misrepresent  Judge  Douglas's  position, 
question  his  motives,  or  do  aught  that  can  be  personally  offen- 
sive to  him.  Whenever,  if  ever,  he  and  we  can  come  together 
on  principle,  so  that  our  cause  may  have  assistance  from  his 
great  ability,  I  hope  to  have  interposed  no  adventitious  obstacle. 
But,  clearly,  he  is  not  now  with  us — he  does  not  pretend  to  be — 
he  does  not  promise  ever  to  be. 

Our  cause,  then,  must  be  intrusted  to,  and  conducted  by,  its 
own  undoubted  friends — those  whose  hands  are  free,  whose 
hearts  are  in  the  work — who  do  care  for  the  result.  Two  years 


APPENDIX.  473 

ago,  the  Republicans  of  the  nation  mustered  over  thirteen  hun- 
dred thousand  strong.  We  did  this  under  the  single  impulse  of 
resistance  to  a  common  danger,  with  every  external  circumstance 
against  us.  Of  strange,  discordant,  and  even  hostile  elements, 
we  gathered  from  the  four  winds,  and  formed  and  fought  the 
battle  through,  under  the  constant  hot  fire  of  a  disciplined 
proud,  and  pampered  enemy.  Did  we  brave  all  then,  to  falter 
now? — now,  when  that  same  enemy  is  wavering,  dissevered, 
and  belligerent  ?  The  result  is  not  doubtful.  We  shall  not 
fail — if  we  stand  firm,  we  shall  not  fail.  Wise  counsels  may 
accelerate,  or  mistakes  delay  it;  but,  sooner  or  later,  the  victory 
is  sure  to  come. 


n. 

SPEECH, 

Delivered  at  Cooper  Institute,  New  York,  Feb.  27,  1860.    (See  Ch.  XXTV.) 

MB.  PRESIDENT,  AND  FELLOW-CITIZENS  OF  NEW  YOKK:  The 
facts  with  which  I  shall  deal  this  evening  are  mainly  old  and 
familiar;  nor  is  there  anything  new  in  the  general  use  I  shall 
make  of  them.  If  there  shall  be  any  novelty,  it  will  be  in  the 
mode  of  presenting  the  facts,  and  the  inferences  and  observa- 
tions following  that  presentation. 

In  his  speech  last  autumn,  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  as  reported  in 
the  New  York  Times,  Senator  Douglas  said: 

"Our  fathers,  when  they  framed  the  government  under  which 
we  live,  understood  this  question  just  as  well,  and  even  better 
than  we  do  now." 

I  fully  indorse  this,  and  I  adopt  it  as  a  text  for  this  discourse. 
I  so  adopt  it  because  it  furnishes  a  precise  and  an  agreed  start- 
ing-point for  a  discussion  between  Republicans  and  that  wing  of 
the  Democracy  headed  by  Senator  Douglas.  It  simply  leaves 
the  inquiry:  "  What  was  the  understanding  those  fathers  had  of 
the  question  mentioned?" 

What  is  the  frame  of  government  under  which  we  live  ? 


474  APPENDIX. 

The  answer  must  be:  "  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States." 
That  Constitution  consists  of  the  original,  framed  in  1*787  (and 
under  which  the  present  government  first  went  into  operation), 
and  twelve  subsequently  framed  amendments,  the  first  ten  of 
which  were  framed  in  1789. 

Who  were  our  fathers  that  framed  the  Constitution  ?  I  sup- 
pose the  "  thirty-nine"  who  signed  the  original  instrument  may 
be  fairly  called  our  fathers  who  framed  that  part  of  the  present 
government.  It  is  almost  exactly  true  to  say  they  framed  it, 
and  it  is  altogether  true  to  say  they  fairly  represented  the 
opinion  and  sentiment  of  the  whole  nation  at  that  time. 

Their  names,  being  familiar  to  nearly  all,  and  accessible  to 
quite  all,  need  not  now  be  repeated. 

I  take  these  "  thirty-nine,"  for  the  present,  as  being  our 
"  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live." 

What  is  the  question  which,  according  to  the  text,  those 
fathers  understood  "  just  as  well,  and  even,  better  than  we  do 
now"  ? 

It  is  this:  Does  the  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal 
authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution,  forbid  our  Federal 
Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  our  Federal  Territories  f 

Upon  this  Senator  Douglas  holds  the  affirmative,  and  Repub- 
licans the  negative.  This  affirmation  and  denial  form  an  issue, 
and  this  issue — this  question — is  precisely  what  the  text  declares 
our  fathers  understood  "better  than  we." 

Let  us  now  inquire  whether  the  "  thirty-nine,"  or  any  of  them, 
acted  upon  this  question;  and  if  they  did,  how  they  acted  upon 
it — how  they  expressed  that  better  understanding. 

In  1784,  three  years  before  the  Constitution — the  United 
States  then  owning  the  Northwestern  Territory,  and  no  other — 
the  Congress  of  the  Confederation  had  before  them  the  question 
of  prohibiting  slavery  in  that  Territory;  and  four  of  the  "thirty- 
nine"  who  afterward  framed  the  Constitution  were  in  that 
Congress  and  voted  on  that  question.  Of  these,  Roger  Sher- 
man, Thomas  Mifflin,  and  Hugh  Williamson  voted  for  the  pro- 
hibition, thus  showing  that,  in  their  understanding,  no  line 
dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  else,  pro- 
perly forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery 


APPENDIX.  475 

in  Federal  territory.  The  other  of  the  four — James  M'Henry — 
voted  against  the  prohibition,  showing  that,  for  some  cause,  he 
thought  it  improper  to  vote  for  it. 

In  1787,  still  before  the  Constitution,  but  while  the  Conven- 
tion was  in  session  framing  it,  and  while  the  Northwestern 
Territory  still  was  the  only  territory  owned  by  the  United 
States,  the  same  question  of  prohibiting  slavery  in  the  territory 
again  came  before  the  Congress  of  the  Confederation ;  and  two 
more  of  the  "  thirty-nine"  who  afterward  signed  the  Constitu- 
tion were  in  that  Congress,  and  voted  on  the  question.  They 
were  William  Blount  and  William  Few ;  and  they  both  voted  for 
the  prohibition — thus  showing  that,  in  their  understanding,  no 
line  dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  else, 
properly  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to 
slavery  in  Federal  territory.  This  time  the  prohibition  became 
a  law,  being  part  of  what  is  now  well  known  as  the  Ordinance 
of  '87. 

The  question  of  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  the  Territories 
seems  not  to  have  been  directly  before  the  Convention  which 
framed  the  original  Constitution;  and  hence  it  is  not  recorded 
that  the  "  thirty-nine,"  or  any  of  them,  while  engaged  on  that 
instrument,  expressed  any  opinion  on  that  precise  question. 

In  1789,  by  the  first  Congress  which  sat  under  the  Constitu- 
tion, an  act  was  passed  to  enforce  the  Ordinance  of  '87,  includ- 
ing the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory. 
The  bill  for  this  act  was  reported  by  one  of  the  "  thirty- nine," 
Thomas  Fitzsimmons,  then  a  member  of  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives from  Pennsylvania.  It  went  through  all  its  stages 
without  a  word  of  opposition,  and  finally  passed  both  branches 
without  yeas  and  nays,  which  is  equivalent  to  a  unanimous 
passage.  In  this  Congress  there  were  sixteen  of  the  thirty-nine 
fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitution.  They  were  John 
Langdon,  Nicholas  Gilman,  William  S.  Johnson,  Roger  Sherman, 
Robert  Morris,  Thomas  Fitzsimmons,  William  Few,  Abraham 
Baldwin,  Rufus  King,  William  Paterson,  George  Clymer,  Rich- 
ard Bassett,  George  Read,  Pierce  Butler,  Daniel  Carroll,  James 
Madison. 

This  shows  that,  in  their  understanding,  no  line  dividing  local 


476  APPENDIX. 

from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  in  the  Constitution,  pro- 
perly forbade  Congress  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Federal  terri- 
tory; else  both  their  fidelity  to  correct  principles,  and  their  oath 
to  support  the  Constitution,  would  have  constrained  them  to 
oppose  the  prohibition. 

Again:  George  Washington,  another  of  the"  thirty -nine,"  was 
then  President  of  the  United  States,  and,  as  such,  approved  and 
signed  the  bill;  thus  completing  its  validity  as  a  law,  and  thus 
showing  that,  in  his  understanding,  no  line  dividing  local  from 
Federal  authority,  nor  anything  in  the  Constitution,  forbade  the 
Federal  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  Federal  terri- 
tory. 

No  great  while  after  the  adoption  of  the  original  Constitution, 
North  Carolina  ceded  to  the  Federal  Government  the  country 
now  constituting  the  State  of  Tennessee;  and,  a  few  years  later, 
Georgia  ceded  that  which  now  constitutes  the  States  of  Missis- 
sippi and  Alabama.  In  both  deeds  of  cession  it  was  made  a 
condition  by  the  ceding  States  that  the  Federal  Government 
should  not  prohibit  slavery  in  the  ceded  country.  Besides  this, 
slavery  was  then  actually  in  the  ceded  country.  Under  these 
circumstances,  Congress,  on  taking  charge  of  these  countries, 
did  not  absolutely  prohibit  slavery  within  them.  But  they  did 
interfere  with  it — take  control  of  it — even  there,  to  a  certain 
extent.  In  1798  Congress  organized  the  Territory  of  Mississippi. 
In  the  act  of  organization,  they  prohibited  the  bringing  of  slaves 
into  the  Territory,  from  any  place  without  the  United  States,  by 
fine,  and  giving  freedom  to  slaves  so  brought.  This  act  passed 
both  branches  of  Congress  without  yeas  and  nays.  In  that 
Congress  were  three  of  the  "thirty-nine"  who  framed  the 
original  Constitution.  They  were  John  Langdon,  George 
Read,  and  Abraham  Baldwin.  They  all,  probably,  voted  for 
it.  Certainly  they  would  have  placed  their  opposition  to  it 
upon  record,  if,  in  their  understanding,  any  line  dividing  local 
from  Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution,  pro- 
perly forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery 
in  Federal  territory. 

In  1803  the  Federal  Government  purchased  the  Louisiana 
country.  Our  former  territorial  acquisitions  came  from  certain 


APPENDIX.  477 

of  our  own  States;  but  this  Louisiana  country  was  acquired 
from  a  foreign  nation.  In  1804  Congress  gave  a  territorial 
organization  to  that  part  of  it  which  now  constitutes  the  State 
of  Louisiana.  New  Orleans,  lying  within  that  part,  was  an  old 
and  comparatively  large  city.  There  were  other  considerable 
towns  and  settlements,  and  slavery  was  extensively  and  thor- 
oughly intermingled  with  the  people.  Congress  did  not,  in  the 
Territorial  Act,  prohibit  slavery;  but  they  did  interfere  with  it 
— take  control  of  it — in  a  more  marked  and  extensive  way  than 
they  did  in  the  case  of  Mississippi.  The  substance  of  the  pro- 
vision therein  made  in  relation  to  slaves  was: 

First.  That  no  slave  should  be  imported  into  the  Territory 
from  foreign  parts. 

Second.  That  no  slave  should  be  carried  into  it  who  had  been 
imported  into  the  United  States  since  the  first  day  of  May, 
1798. 

Third.  That  no  slave  should  be  carried  into  it  except  by  the 
owner,  and  for  his  own  use  as  a  settler;  the  penalty  in  all  the 
oases  being  a  fine  upon  the  violator  of  the  law,  and  freedom  to 
the  slave. 

This  act  also  was  passed  without  yeas  and  nays.  In  the  Con- 
gress which  passed  it  there  were  two  of  the  "  thirty-nine."  They 
were  Abraham  Baldwin  and  Jonathan  Dayton.  As  stated  in 
the  case  of  Mississippi,  it  is  probable  they  both  voted  for  it. 
They  would  not  have  allowed  it  to  pass  without  recording  their 
opposition  to  it,  if,  in  their  understanding,  it  violated  either  the 
line  properly  dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any 
provision  of  the  Constitution. 

In  1819-20  came  and  passed  the  Missouri  question.  Many 
votes  were  taken,  by  yeas  and  nays,  in  both  branches  of  Con- 
gress, upon  the  various  phases  of  the  general  question.  Two  of 
the  "thirty-nine" — Rufus  King  and  Charles  Pinckney — were 
members  of  that  Congress.  Mr.  King  steadily  voted  for  slavery 
prohibition  and  against  all  compromises,  while  Mr.  Pinckney  as 
steadily  voted  against  slavery  prohibition  and  against  all  com- 
promises. By  this  Mr.  King  showed  that,  in  his  understanding, 
no  line  dividing  local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  anything  in 
the  Constitution,  was  violated  by  Congress  prohibiting  slavery 


478  APPENDIX. 

in  Federal  territory;  while  Mr.  Pinckney,  by  his  vote,  showed 
that,  in  his  understanding,  there  was  some  sufficient  reason  for 
opposing  such  prohibition  in  that  case. 

The  cases  I  have  mentioned  are  the  only  acts  of  the  "  thirty- 
nine,"  or  of  any  of  them,  upon  the  direct  issue,  which  I  have 
been  able  to  discover. 

To  enumerate  the  persons  who  thus  acted,  as  being  four  in 
1784,  two  in  1787,  seventeen  in  1789,  three  in  1798,  two  in  1804, 
and  two  in  1819-20,  there  would  be  thirty  of  them.  But  this 
would  be  counting  John  Langdon,  Roger  Sherman,  William 
Few,  Rufus  King,  and  George  Read,  each  twice,  and  Abraham 
Baldwin  three  times.  The  true  number  of  those  of  the  "  thirty- 
nine"  whom  I  have  shown  to  have  acted  upon  the  question 
which,  by  the  text,  they  understood  better  than  we  is  twenty- 
three,  leaving  sixteen  not  shown  to  have  acted  upon  it  in  any 
way. 

Here,  then,  we  have  twenty-three  out  of  our  thirty-nine 
fathers  "  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live," 
who  have,  upon  their  official  responsibility  and  their  corporal 
oaths,  acted  upon  the  very  question  which  the  text  affirms  they 
"understood  just  as  well,  and  even  better  than  we  do  now;"  and 
twenty-one  of  them — a  clear  majority  of  the  whole  "  thirty- 
nine" — so  acting  upon  it  as  to  make  them  guilty  of  gross 
political  impropriety  and  willful  perjury,  if,  in  their  understand- 
ing, any  proper  division  between  local  and  Federal  authority,  or 
anything  in  the  Constitution  they  had  made  themselves,  and 
sworn  to  support,  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as 
to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories.  Thus  the  twenty-one 
acted;  and,  as  actions  speak  louder  than  words,  so  actions, 
under  such  responsibility,  speak  still  louder. 

Two  of  the  twenty-three  voted  against  Congressional  prohi- 
bition of  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories,  in  the  instances  in 
which  they  acted  upon  the  question.  But  for  what  reasons  they 
so  voted  is  not  known.  They  may  have  done  so  because  they 
thought  a  proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or 
some  provision  or  principle  of  the  Constitution,  stood  in  the 
way;  or  they  may,  without  any  such  question,  have  voted 
against  the  prohibition  on  what  appeared  to  them  to  be  suffi- 


APPENDIX.  479 

cient  grounds  of  expediency.  No  one  who  has  sworn  to  sup- 
port the  Constitution  can  conscientiously  vote  for  what  he 
understands  to  be  an  unconstitutional  measure,  however  expedi- 
ent he  may  think  it;  but  one  may  and  ought  to  vote  against  a 
measure  which  he  deems  constitutional,  if,  at  the  same  time, 
he  deems  it  inexpedient.  It  therefore  would  be  unsafe  to  set 
down  even  the  two  who  voted  against  the  prohibition  as  having 
done  so  because,  in  their  understanding,  any  proper  division  of 
local  from  Federal  authority,  or  anything  in  the  Constitution, 
forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in 
Federal  territory. 

The  remaining  sixteen  of  the  "  thirty-nine,"  so  far  as  I  have 
discovered,  have  left  no  record  of  their  understanding  upon  the 
direct  question  of  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  the  Federal 
Territories.  But  there  is  much  reason  to  believe  that  their 
understanding  upon  that  question  would  not  have  appeared 
different  from  that  of  their  twenty-three  compeers,  had  it  been 
manifested  at  all. 

For  the  purpose  of  adhering  rigidly  to  the  text,  I  have  pur- 
posely omitted  whatever  understanding  may  have  been  mani- 
fested by  any  person,  however  distinguished,  other  than  the 
thirty-nine  fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitution;  and, 
for  the  same  reason,  I  have  also  omitted  whatever  understand- 
ing may  have  been  manifested  by  any  of  the  "  thirty-nine,"  even, 
on  any  other  phase  of  the  general  question  of  slavery.  If  we 
should  look  into  their  acts  and  declarations  on  those  other 
phases,  as  the  foreign  slave-trade,  and  the  morality  and  policy 
of  slavery  generally,  it  would  appear  to  us  that  on  the  direct 
question  of  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories, 
the  sixteen,  if  they  had  acted  at  all,  would  probably  have  acted 
just  as  the  twenty-three  did.  Among  that  sixteen  were  several 
of  the  most  noted  antislavery  men  of  those  times, — as  Dr. 
Franklin,  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  Gouverneur  Morris, — while 
there  was  not  one  now  known  to  have  been  otherwise,  unless  it 
may  be  John  Rutledge,  of  South  Carolina. 

The  sum  of  the  whole  is,  that  of  our  thirty-nine  fathers  who 
framed  the  original  Constitution,  twenty-one — a  clear  majority 
of  the  whole — certainly  understood  that  no  proper  division  of 


480  APPENDIX. 

local  from  Federal  authority,  nor  any  part  of  the  Constitution, 
forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  slavery  in  the  Fed- 
eral Territories;  whilst  all  the  rest  probably  had  the  same 
understanding.  Such,  unquestionably,  was  the  understanding 
of  our  fathers  who  framed  the  original  Constitution;  and  the 
text  affirms  that  they  understood  the  question  "  better  than  we." 

But,  so  far,  I  have  been  considering  the  understanding  of  the 
question  manifested  by  the  framers  of  the  original  Constitution. 
In  and  by  the  original  instrument,  a  mode  was  provided  for 
amending  it;  and,  as  I  have  already  stated,  the  present  frame  of 
"  the  government  under  which  we  live"  consists  of  that  original, 
and  twelve  amendatory  articles  framed  and  adopted  since. 
Those  who  now  insist  that  Federal  control  of  slavery  in  Federal 
Territories  violates  the  Constitution,  point  us  to  the  provisions 
which  they  suppose  it  thus  violates;  and,  as  I  understand,  they 
all  fix  upon  provisions  in  these  amendatory  articles,  and  not  in 
the  original  instrument.  The  Supreme  Court,  in  the  Dred  Scott 
case,  plant  themselves  upon  the  fifth  amendment,  which  provides 
that  no  person  shall  be  deprived  of  "  life,  liberty,  or  property 
without  due  process  of  law;"  while  Senator  Douglas  and  his 
peculiar  adherents  plant  themselves  upon  the  tenth  amendment, 
providing  that  "  the  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States 
by  the  Constitution"  "  are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively, 
or  to  the  people." 

Now,  it  so  happens  that  these  amendments  were  framed -by 
the  first  Congress  which  sat  under  the  Constitution — the  identi- 
cal Congress  which  passed  the  act  already  mentioned,  enforcing 
the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  Northwestern  Territory.  Not 
only  was  it  the  same  Congress,  but  they  were  the  identical 
same  individual  men  who,  at  the  same  session,  and  at  the  same 
time  within  the  session,  had  under  consideration,  and  in  pro- 
gress toward  maturity,  these  Constitutional  amendments,  and 
this  act  prohibiting  slavery  in  all  the  territory  the  nation  then 
owned.  The  Constitutional  amendments  were  introduced  before, 
and  passed  after,  the  act  enforcing  the  Ordinance  of  '87;  so  that,, 
during  the  whole  pendency  of  the  act  to  enforce  the  Ordinance, 
the  Constitutional  amendments  were  also  pending. 

The  seventy-six  members  of  that  Congress,  including  sixteen 


APPENDIX.  481 

of  the  framers  of  the  original  Constitution,  as  before  stated, 
were  pre-eminently  our  fathers  who  framed  that  part  of  "  the 
government  under  which  we  live"  which  is  now  claimed  as 
forbidding  the  Federal  Government  to  control  slavery  in  the 
Federal  Territories. 

Is  it  not  a  little  presumptuous  in  any  one  at  this  day  to  affirm 
that  the  two  things  which  that  Congress  deliberately  framed, 
and  carried  to  maturity  at  the  same  time,  are  absolutely  incon- 
sistent with  each  other  ?  And  does  not  such  affirmation  become 
impudently  absurd  when  coupled  with  the  other  affirmation 
from  the  same  mouth,  that  those  who  did  the  two  things  alleged 
to  be  inconsistent  understood  whether  they  really  were  incon- 
sistent better  than  we — better  than  he  who  affirms  that  they  are 
inconsistent  ? 

It  is  surely  safe  to  assume  that  the  thirty-nine  framers  of  the 
original  Constitution,  and  the  seventy-six  members  of  the  Con- 
gress which  framed  the  amendments  thereto,  taken  together,  da 
certainly  include  those  who  may  be  fairly  called  "  our  fathers 
who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live."  And,  so 
assuming,  I  defy  any  man  to  show  that  any  one  of  them  ever,  in 
his  whole  life,  declared  that,  in  his  understanding,  any  proper 
division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  part  of  the 
Constitution,  forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to 
slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories.  I  go  a  step  further.  I  defy 
any  one  to  show  that  any  living  man  in  the  whole  world  ever 
did,  prior  to  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  (and  I  might 
almost  say  prior  to  the  beginning  of  the  last  half  of  the  present 
century),  declare  that,  in  his  understanding,  any  proper  division 
of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  part  of  the  Constitution, 
forbade  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the 
Federal  Territories.  To  those  who  now  so  declare,  I  give  not 
only  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we 
live,"  but  with  them  all  other  living  men  within  the  century  in 
which  it  was  framed,  among  whom  to  search,  and  they  shall  not 
be  able  to  find  the  evidence  of  a  single  man  agreeing  with 
them. 

Now,  and  here,  let  me  guard  a  little  against  being  misunder- 
stood. I  do  not  mean  to  say  we  are  bound  to  follow  implicitly 


482  APPENDIX. 

in  whatever  our  fathers  did.  To  do  so  would  be  to  discard  all 
the  lights  of  current  experience — to  reject  all  progress,  all  im- 
provement. What  I  do  say  is,  that  if  we  would  supplant  the 
opinions  and  policy  of  our  fathers  in  any  case,  we  should  do  so 
upon  evidence  so  conclusive,  and  argument  so  clear,  that  even 
their  great  authority,  fairly  considered  and  weighed,  cannot 
stand;  and  most  surely  not  in  a  case  whereof  we  ourselves 
declare  they  understood  the  question  better  than  we. 

If  any  man  at  this  day  sincerely  believes  that  proper  division 
of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  any  part  of  the  Constitution, 
forbids  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as  to  slavery  in  the 
Federal  Territories,  he  is  right  to  say  so,  and  to  enforce  his 
position  by  all  truthful  evidence  and  fair  argument  which  he 
can.  But  he  has  no  right  to  mislead  others  who  have  less  access 
to  history,  and  less  leisure  to  study  it,  into  the  false  belief  that 
"  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live" 
were  of  the  same  opinion — thus  substituting  falsehood  and 
deception  for  truthful  evidence  and  fair  argument.  If  any  man 
at  this  day  sincerely  believes  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  gov- 
ernment under  which  we  live"  used  and  applied  principles,  in 
other  cases,  which  ought  to  have  led  them  to  understand  that  a 
proper  division  of  local  from  Federal  authority,  or  some  part  of 
the  Constitution,  forbids  the  Federal  Government  to  control  as 
to  slavery  in  the  Federal  Territories,  he  is  right  to  say  so.  But 
he  should,  at  the  same  time,  brave  the  responsibility  of  declar- 
ing that,  in  his  opinion,  he  understands  their  principles  better 
than  they  did  themselves;  and  especially  should  he  not  shirk 
that  responsibility  by  asserting  that  they  "  understood  the  ques- 
tion just  as  well,  and  even  better  than  we  do  now." 

But  enough !  Let  all  who  believe  that  "  our  fathers  icho 
framed  the  government  under  which  we  live  understood  this 
question  just  as  well,  and  even  better  than  we  do  now"  speak  as 
they  spoke,  and  act  as  they  acted  upon  it.  This  is  all  Repub- 
licans ask — all  Republicans  desire — in  relation  to  slavery.  As 
those  fathers  marked  it,  so  let  it  be  again  marked,  as  an  evil 
not  to  be  extended,  but  to  be  tolerated  and  protected  only  because 
of,  and  so  far  as,  its  actual  presence  among  us  makes  that  tole- 
ration and  protection  a  necessity.  Let  all  the  guaranties  those 


APPENDIX.  483 

fathers  gave  it  be  not  grudgingly,  but  fully  and  fairly  main- 
tained. For  this  Republicans  contend,  and  with  this,  so  far  as 
I  know  or  believe,  they  will  be  content. 

And  now,  if  they  would  listen — as  I  suppose  they  will  not — I 
would  address  a  few  words  to  the  Southern  people. 

I  would  say  to  them:  You  consider  yourselves  a  reasonable 
and  a  just  people;  and  I  consider  that  in  the  general  qualities  of 
reason  and  justice  you  are  not  inferior  to  any  other  people. 
Still,  when  you  speak  of  us  Republicans,  you  do  so  only  to 
denounce  us  as  reptiles,  or,  at  the  best,  as  no  better  than  outlaws. 
You  will  grant  a  hearing  to  pirates  or  murderers,  but  nothing 
like  it  to  "Black  Republicans."  In  all  your  contentions  with 
one  another,  each  of  you  deems  an  unconditional  condemnation 
of  "  Black  Republicanism"  as  the  first  thing  to  be  attended  to. 
Indeed,  such  condemnation  of  us  seems  to  be  an  indispensable 
prerequisite — license,  so  to  speak — among  you,  to  be  admitted 
or  permitted  to  speak  at  all.  Now,  can  you,  or  not,  be  prevailed 
upon  to  pause,  and  to  consider  whether  this  is  quite  just  to  us, 
or  even  to  yourselves  ?  Bring  forward  your  charges  and  speci- 
fications, and  then  be  patient  long  enough  to  hear  us  deny  or 
justify. 

You  say  we  are  sectional.  We  deny  it.  That  makes  an  issue; 
and  the  burden  of  proof  is  upon  you.  You  produce  your  proof; 
and  what  is  it  ?  Why,  that  our  party  has  no  existence  in  your 
section — gets  no  votes  in  your  section.  The  fact  is  substantially 
true ;  but  does  it  prove  the  issue  ?  If  it  does,  then  in  case  we 
should,  without  change  of  principle,  begin  to  get  votes  in  your 
section,  we  should  thereby  cease  to  be  sectional.  You  cannot 
escape  this  conclusion;  and  yet,  are  you  willing  to  abide  by  it? 
If  you  are,  you  will  probably  soon  find  that  we  have  ceased  to 
be  sectional,  for  we  shall  get  votes  in  your  section  this  very 
year.  You  will  then  begin  to  discover,  as  the  truth  plainly  is, 
that  your  proof  does  not  touch  the  issue.  The  fact  that  we  get 
no  votes  in  your  section  is  a  fact  of  your  making,  and  not  of 
ours.  And  if  there  be  fault  in  that  fact,  that  fault  is  primarily 
yours,  and  remains  so  until  you  show  that  we  repel  you  by  some 
wrong  principle  or  practice.  If  we  do  repel  you  by  any  wrong 
principle  or  practice,  the  fault  is  ours;  but  this  brings  you  to 


484  APPENDIX. 

where  you  ought  to  have  started — to  a  discussion  of  the  right  or 
wrong  of  our  principle.  If  our  principle,  put  in  practice,  would 
wrong  your  section  for  the  benefit  of  ours,  or  for  any  other 
object,  then  our  principle,  and  we  with  it,  are  sectional,  and  are 
justly  opposed  and  denounced  as  such.  Meet  us,  then,  on  the 
question  of  whether  our  principle,  put  in  practice,  would  wrong 
your  section;  and  so  meet  us  as  if  it  were  possible  that  some- 
thing may  be  said  on  our  side.  Do  you  accept  the  challenge  ? 
No  !  Then  you  really  believe  that  the  principle  which  "  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live" 
thought  so  clearly  right  as  to  adopt  it,  and  indorse  it  again  and 
again,  upon  their  official  oaths,  is  in  fact  so  clearly  wrong  as  to 
demand  your  condemnation  without  a  moment's  consideration. 

Some  of  you  delight  to  flaunt  in  our  faces  the  warning  against 
sectional  parties  given  by  Washington  in  his  Farewell  Address. 
Less  than  eight  years  before  Washington  gave  that  warning,  he 
had,  as  President  of  the  United  States,  approved  and  signed  an 
act  of  Congress  enforcing  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the 
Northwestern  Territory,  which  act  embodied  the  policy  of  the 
government  upon  that  subject  up  to,  and  at,  the  very  moment 
he  penned  that  warning;  and  about  one  year  after  he  penned  it, 
he  wrote  La  Fayette  that  he  considered  that  prohibition  a  wise 
measure,  expressing  in  the  same  connection  his  hope  that  we 
should  at  some  time  have  a  confederacy  of  free  States. 

Bearing  this  in  mind,  and  seeing  that  sectionalism  has  since 
arisen  upon  this  same  subject,  is  that  warning  a  weapon  in  your 
hands  against  us,  or  in  our  hands  against  you  ?  Could  Wash- 
ington himself  speak,  would  he  cast  the  blame  of  that  sectional- 
ism upon  us,  who  sustain  his  policy,  or  upon  you,  who  repudiate 
it  ?  We  respect  that  warning  of  Washington,  and  we  commend 
it  to  you,  together  with  his  example  pointing  to  the  right  appli- 
cation of  it. 

But  you  say  you  are  conservative — eminently  conservative — 
while  we  are  revolutionary,  destructive,  or  something  of  the 
sort.  What  is  conservatism  ?  Is  it  not  adherence  to  the  old 
and  tried,  against  a  new  and  untried?  We  stick  to,  contend 
for,  the  identical  old  policy  on  the  point  in  controversy  which 
was  adopted  by  "  our  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under 


APPENDIX.  485 

which  we  live;"  while  you  with  one  accord  reject,  and  scout, 
and  spit  upon  that  old  policy,  and  insist  upon  substituting  some- 
thing new.  True,  you  disagree  among  yourselves  as  to  what 
that  substitute  shall  be.  You  are  divided  on  new  propositions 
and  plans,  but  you  are  unanimous  in  rejecting  and  denouncing 
the  old  policy  of  the  fathers.  Some  of  you  are  for  reviving  the 
foreign  slave-trade;  some  for  a  Congressional  Slave-Code  for 
the  Territories;  some  for  Congress  forbidding  the  Territories 
to  prohibit  slavery  within  their  limits;  some  for  maintaining 
slavery  in  the  Territories  through  the  judiciary;  some  for  the 
"  gur-reat  pur-rinciple"  that  "  if  one  man  would  enslave  another, 
no  third  man  should  object,"  fantastically  called  "  Popular  Sov- 
ereignty;" but  never  a  man  among  you  in  favor  of  Federal  pro- 
hibition of  slavery  in  Federal  Territories,  according  to  the 
practice  of  "our  fathers  who  framed  the  government  under 
which  we  live."  Not  one  of  all  your  various  plans  can  show  a 
precedent  or  an  advocate  in  the  century  within  which  our  gov- 
ernment originated.  Consider,  then,  whether  your  claim  of 
conservatism  for  yourselves,  and  your  charge  of  destructiveness 
against  us,  are  based  on  the  most  clear  and  stable  foundations. 

Again:  you  say  we  have  made  the  slavery  question  more 
prominent  than  it  formerly  was.  We  deny  it.  We  admit  that 
it  is  more  prominent,  but  we  deny  that  we  made  it  so.  It  was 
not  we,  but  you,  who  discarded  the  old  policy  of  the  fathers. 
We  resisted,  and  still  resist  your  innovation;  and  thence  comes 
the  greater  prominence  of  the  question.  Would  you  have  that 
question  reduced  to  its  former  proportions  ?  Go  back  to  that 
old  policy.  What  has  been  will  be  again,  under  the  same  con- 
ditions. If  you  would  have  the  peace  of  the  old  times,  readopt 
the  precepts  and  policy  of  the  old  times. 

You  charge  that  we  stir  up  insurrections  among  your  slaves. 
We  deny  it;  and  what  is  your  proof?  Harper's  Ferry!  John 
Brown  ! !  John  Brown  was  no  Republican ;  and  you  have  failed 
to  implicate  a  single  Republican  in  his  Harper's  Ferry  enter- 
prise. If  any  member  of  our  party  is  guilty  in  that  matter,  you 
know  it  or  you  do  not  know  it.  If  you  do  know  it,  you  are 
inexcusable  for  not  designating  the  man  and  proving  the  fact. 
If  you  do  not  know  it,  you  are  inexcusable  for  asserting  it,  and 


486  APPENDIX. 

especially  for  persisting  in  the  assertion  after  you  have  tried 
and  failed  to  make  the  proof.  You  need  not  be  told  that  per- 
sisting in  a  charge  which  one  does  not  know  to  be  true  is  simply 
malicious  slander. 

Some  of  you  admit  that  no  Republican  designedly  aided  or 
encouraged  the  Harper's  Ferry  affair;  but  still  insist  that  our 
doctrines  and  declarations  necessarily  lead  to  such  results.  We 
do  not  believe  it.  "We  know  we  hold  to  no  doctrine,  and  make 
no  declaration,  which  were  not  held  to  and  made  by  "  our 
fathers  who  framed  the  government  under  which  we  live." 
You  never  dealt  fairly  by  us  in  relation  to  this  affair.  When  it 
occurred,  some  important  State  elections  were  near  at  hand,  and 
you  were  in  evident  glee  with  the  belief  that,  by  charging  the 
blame  upon  us,  you  could  get  an  advantage  of  us  in  those  elec- 
tions. The  elections  came,  and  your  expectations  were  not 
quite  fulfilled.  Every  Republican  man  knew  that,  as  to  himself 
at  least,  your  charge  was  a  slander,  and  he  was  not  much 
inclined  by  it  to  cast  his  vote  in  your  favor.  Republican  doc- 
trines and  declarations  are  accompanied  with  a  continued  pro- 
test against  any  interference  whatever  with  your  slaves,  or  with 
you  about  your  slaves.  Surely,  this  does  not  encourage  them  to 
revolt.  True,  we  do,  in  common  with  "  our  fathers  who  framed 
the  government  under  which  we  live,"  declare  our  belief  that 
slavery  is  wrong;  but  the  slaves  do  not  hear  us  declare  even 
this.  For  anything  we  say  or  do,  the  slaves  would  scarcely 
know  there  is  a  Republican  party.  I  believe  they  would  not,  in 
fact,  generally  know  it  but  for  your  misrepresentations  of  us  in 
their  hearing.  In  your  political  contests  among  yourselves, 
each  faction  charges  the  other  with  sympathy  with  Black  Re- 
publicanism; and  then,  to  give  point  to  the  charge,  defines 
Black  Republicanism  to  simply  be  insurrection,  blood,  and 
thunder  among  the  slaves. 

Slave-insurrections  are  no  more  common  now  than  they  were 
before  the  Republican  party  was  organized.  What  induced  the 
Southampton  insurrection,  twenty-eight  years  ago,  in  which  at 
least  three  times  as  many  lives  were  lost  as  at  Harper's  Ferry  ? 
You  can  scarcely  stretch  your  very  elastic  fancy  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  Southampton  was  "  got  up  by  Black  Republicanism." 


APPENDIX.  487 

In  the  present  state  of  things  in  the  United  States,  I  do  not 
think  a  general  or  even  a  very  extensive  slave-insurrection  is 
possible.  The  indispensable  concert  of  action  cannot  be 
attained.  The  slaves  have  no  means  of  rapid  communication; 
nor  can  incendiary  freemen,  black  or  white,  supply  it.  The 
explosive  materials  are  everywhere  in  parcels;  but  there  neither 
are,  nor  can  be  supplied,  the  indispensable  connecting-trains. 

Much  is  said  by  Southern  people  about  the  affection  of  slaves 
for  their  masters  and  mistresses;  and  a  part  of  it,  at  least,  is 
true.  A  plot  for  an  uprising  could  scarcely  be  devised  and  com- 
municated to  twenty  individuals  before  some  one  of  them,  to 
save  the  life  of  a  favorite  master  or  mistress,  would  divulge  it. 
This  is  the  rule;  and  the  slave-revolution  in  Hayti  was  not  an 
exception  to  it,  but  a  case  occurring  under  peculiar  circum- 
stances. The  gunpowder-plot  of  British  history,  though  not 
connected  with  slaves,  was  more  in  point.  In  that  case,  only 
about  twenty  were  admitted  to  the  secret;  and  yet  one  of  them, 
in  his  anxiety  to  save  a  friend,  betrayed  the  plot  to  that  friend, 
and,  by  consequence,  averted  the  calamity.  Occasional  poison- 
ings from  the  kitchen,  and  open  or  stealthy  assassinations  in  the 
field,  and  local  revolts,  extending  to  a  score  or  so,  will  continue 
to  occur  as  the  natural  results  of  slavery;  but  no  general  insur- 
rection of  slaves,  as  I  think,  can  happen  in  this  country  for  a 
long  time.  Whoever  much  fears  or  much  hopes  for  such  an 
event  will  be  alike  disappointed. 

In  the  language  of  Mr.  Jefferson,  uttered  many  years  ago, "  It 
is  still  in  our  power  to  direct  the  process  of  emancipation  and 
deportation  peaceably,  and  in  such  slow  degrees  as  that  the  evil 
will  wear  off  insensibly;  and  their  places  be,  pari  passu,  filled 
up  by  free  white  laborers.  If,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  left  to 
force  itself  on,  human  nature  must  shudder  at  the  prospect 
held  up." 

Mr.  Jefferson  did  not  mean  to  say,  nor  do  I,  that  the  power 
of  emancipation  is  in  the  Federal  Government.  He  spoke  of 
Virginia;  and,  as  to  the  power  of  emancipation,  I  speak  of  the 
slave-holding  States  only.  The  Federal  Government,  however, 
as  we  insist,  has  the  power  of  restraining  the  extension  of  the 
institution — the  power  to  insure  that  a  slave-insurrection  shall 


488  APPENDIX. 

never  occur  on  any  American  soil  which  is  now  free  from 
slavery. 

John  Brown's  effort  was  peculiar.  It  was  not  a  slave-insur- 
rection. It  was  an  attempt  by  white  men  to  get  up  a  revolt 
among  slaves,  in  which  the  slaves  refused  to  participate.  In 
fact,  it  was  so  absurd  that  the  slaves,  with  all  their  ignorance, 
saw  plainly  enough  it  could  not  succeed.  That  affair,  in  its 
philosophy,  corresponds  with  the  many  attempts  related  in  his- 
tory at  the  assassination  of  kings  and  emperors.  An  enthusiast 
broods  over  the  oppression  of  a  people  till  he  fancies  himself 
commissioned  by  Heaven  to  liberate  them.  He  ventures  the 
attempt,  which  ends  in  little  else  than  his  own  execution. 
Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon  and  John  Brown's  attempt 
at  Harper's  Ferry  were,  in  their  philosophy,  precisely  the  same. 
The  eagerness  to  cast  blame  on  old  England  in  the  one  case,  and 
on  New  England  in  the  other,  does  not  disprove  the  sameness  of 
the  two  things. 

And  how  much  would  it  avail  you,  if  you  could,  by  the  use  of 
John  Brown,  Helper's  Book,  and  the  like,  break  up  the  Repub- 
lican organization  ?  Human  action  can  be  modified  to  some 
extent,  but  human  nature  cannot  be  changed.  There  is  a  judg- 
ment and  a  feeling  against  slavery  in  this  nation  which  cast  at  least 
a  million  and  a  half  of  votes.  You  cannot  destroy  that  judgment 
and  feeling — that  sentiment — by  breaking  up  the  political  organ- 
ization which  rallies  around  it.  You  can  scarcely  scatter  and 
disperse  an  army  which  has  been  formed  into  order  in  the  face 
of  your  heaviest  fire;  but  if  you  could,  how  much  would  you 
gain  by  forcing  the  sentiment  which  created  it  out  of  the  peace- 
ful channel  of  the  ballot-box  into  some  other  channel  ?  What 
would  that  other  channel  probably  be  ?  Would  the  number  of 
John  Browns  be  lessened  or  enlarged  by  the  operation  ? 

But  you  will  break  up  the  Union  rather  than  submit  to  a 
denial  of  your  Constitutional  rights. 

That  has  a  somewhat  reckless  sound;  but  it  would  be  palli- 
ated, if  not  fully  justified,  were  we  proposing,  by  the  mere  force 
of  numbers,  to  deprive  you  of  some  right  plainly  written  down 
in  the  Constitution.  But  we  are  proposing  no  such  thing. 

When  you  make  these  declarations,  you  have  a  specific  and 


APPENDIX.  489 

well-understood  allusion  to  an  assumed  Constitutional  right  of 
yours  to  take  slaves  into  the  Federal  Territories,  and  to  hold 
them  there  as  property.  But  no  such  right  is  specifically  writ- 
ten in  the  Constitution.  That  instrument  is  literally  silent 
about  any  such  right.  We,  on  the  contrary,  deny  that  such  a 
right  has  any  existence  in  the  Constitution,  even  by  implica- 
tion. 

Your  purpose,  then,  plainly  stated,  is,  that  you  will  destroy 
the  government  unless  you  be  allowed  to  construe  and  enforce 
the  Constitution  as  you  please  on  all  points  in  dispute  between 
you  and  us.  You  will  rule  or  ruin,  in  all  events. 

This,  plainly  stated,  is  your  language.  Perhaps  you  will  say 
the  Supreme  Court  has  decided  the  disputed  Constitutional 
question  in  your  favor.  Not  quite  so.  But,  waiving  the  law- 
yer's distinction  between  dictum  and  decision,  the  Court  have 
decided  the  question  for  you  in  a  sort  of  way.  The  Court  have 
substantially  said,  it  is  your  Constitutional  right  to  take  slaves 
into  the  Federal  Territories,  and  to  hold  them  there  as  property. 
When  I  say  the  decision  was  made  in  a  sort  of  way,  I  mean  it 
was  made  in  a  divided  Court,  by  a  bare  majority  of  the  judges, 
and  they  not  quite  agreeing  with  one  another  in  the  reasons  for 
making  it;  that  it  is  so  made  as  that  its  avowed  supporters  dis- 
agree with  one  another  about  its  meaning,  and  that  it  was 
mainly  based  upon  a  mistaken  statement  of  fact — the  statement 
in  the  opinion  that "  the  right  of  property  in  a  slave  is  distinctly 
and  expressly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution." 

An  inspection  of  the  Constitution  will  show  that  the  right  of 
property  in  a  slave  is  not  "  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed  "  in 
it.  Bear  in  mind,  the  judges  do  not  pledge  their  judicial 
opinion  that  such  right  is  impliedly  affirmed  in  the  Constitution; 
but  they  pledge  their  veracity  that  it  is  "  distinctly  and  express- 
ly" affirmed  there — "  distinctly,"  that  is,  not  mingled  with  any- 
thing else;  "expressly,"  that  is,  in  words  meaning  just  that, 
without  the  aid  of  any  inference,  and  susceptible  of  no  other 
meaning. 

If  they  had  only  pledged  their  judicial  opinion  that  such  right 
is  affirmed  in  the  instrument  by  implication,  it  would  be  open  to 
others  to  show  that  neither  the  word  "  slave"  nor  "  slavery"  is 


490  APPENDIX. 

to  be  found  in  the  Constitution,  nor  the  word  "  property,"  even, 
in  any  connection  with  language  alluding  to  the  things  slave 
or  slavery;  and  that  wherever  in  that  instrument  the  slave  is 
alluded  to,  he  is  called  a  "person;"  and  wherever  his  master's 
legal  right  in  relation  to  him  is  alluded  to,  it  is  spoken  of  as 
"service  or  labor  which  may  be  due," — as  a  debt  payable  in 
service  or  labor.  Also,  it  would  be  open  to  show,  by  contempo- 
raneous history,  that  this  mode  of  alluding  to  slaves  and  slavery, 
instead  of  speaking  of  them,  was  employed  on  purpose  to  exclude 
from  the  Constitution  the  idea  that  there  could  be  property  in 
man. 

To  show  all  this  is  easy  and  certain. 

When  this  obvious  mistake  of  the  judges  shall  be  brought  to 
their  notice,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  expect  that  they  will  with- 
draw the  mistaken  statement,  and  reconsider  the  conclusion 
based  upon  it  ? 

And  then  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  "our  fathers  who 
framed  the  government  under  which  we  live" — the  men  who 
made  the  Constitution — decided  this  same  Constitutional  ques- 
tion in  our  favor,  long  ago:  decided  it  without  division  among 
themselves  when  making  the  decision;  without  division  among 
themselves  about  the  meaning  of  it  after  it  was  made,  and,  so 
far  as  any  evidence  is  left,  without  basing  it  upon  any  mistaken 
statement  of  facts. 

Under  all  these  circumstances,  do  you  really  feel  yourselves 
justified  to  break  up  this  government,  unless  such  a  court 
decision  as  yours  is  shall  be  at  once  submitted  to  as  a  conclusive 
and  final  rule  of  political  action  ?  But  you  will  not  abide  the 
election  of  a  Republican  President !  In  that  supposed  event, 
you  say,  you  will  destroy  the  Union;  and  then,  you  say,  the 
great  crime  of  having  destroyed  it  will  be  upon  us  !  That  is 
cool.  A  highwayman  holds  a  pistol  to  my  ear,  and  mutters 
through  his  teeth,  "  Stand  and  deliver,  or  I  shall  kill  you,  and 
then  you  will  be  a  murderer  !" 

To  be  sure,  what  the  robber  demanded  of  me — my  money — 
was  my  own;  and  I  had  a  clear  right  to  keep  it.  But  it  was  no 
more  my  own  than  my  vote  is  my  own;  and  the  threat  of  death 
to  me  to  extort  my  money,  and  the  threat  of  destruction  to  the 


APPENDIX.  491 

Union  to  extort  my  vote,  can  scarcely  be  distinguished  in  prin- 
ciple. 

A  few  words  now  to  Republicans.  It  is  exceedingly  desirable 
that  all  parts  of  this  great  confederacy  shall  be  at  peace,  and 
in  harmony  one  with  another.  Let  us  Republicans  do  our  part 
to  have  it  so.  Even  though  much  provoked,  let  us  do  nothing 
through  passion  and  ill-temper.  Even  though  the  Southern 
people  will  not  so  much  as  listen  to  us,  let  us  calmly  consider 
their  demands,  and  yield  to  them  if,  in  our  deliberate  view  of 
our  duty,  we  possibly  can.  Judging  by  all  they  say  and  do,  and 
by  the  subject  and  nature  of  their  controversy  with  us,  let  us 
determine,  if  we  can,  what  will  satisfy  them. 

Will  they  be  satisfied  if  the  Territories  be  unconditionally 
surrendered  to  them?  We  know  they  will  not.  In  all  their 
present  complaints  against  us,  the  Territories  are  scarcely  men- 
tioned. Invasions  and  insurrections  are  the  rage  now.  Will  it 
satisfy  them  if,  in  the  future,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with 
invasions  and  insurrections?  We  know  it  will  not.  We  so 
know,  because  we  know  we  never  had  anything  to  do  with  in- 
vasions and  insurrections;  and  yet  this  total  abstaining  does  not 
exempt  us  from  the  charge  and  the  denunciation. 

The  question  recurs,  What  will  satisfy  them?  Simply  this: 
We  must  not  only  let  them  alone,  but  we  must,  somehow,  con- 
vince them  that  we  do  let  them  alone.  This,  we  know  by  expe- 
rience, is  no  easy  task.  We  have  been  so  trying  to  convince 
them  from  the  very  beginning  of  our  organization,  but  with  no 
success.  In  all  our  platforms  and  speeches  we  have  constantly 
protested  our  purpose  to  let  them  alone;  but  this  has  had  no 
tendency  to  convince  them.  Alike  unavailing  to  convince  them 
is  the  fact  that  they  have  never  detected  a  man  of  us  in  any 
attempt  to  disturb  them. 

These  natural  and  apparently  adequate  means  all  failing, 
what  will  convince  them?  This,  and  this  only:  cease  to  call 
slavery  wrong,  and  join  them  in  calling  it  right.  And  this 
must  be  done  thoroughly — done  in  acts  as  well  as  in  words. 
Silence  will  not  be  tolerated:  we  must  place  ourselves  avow- 
edly with  them.  Senator  Douglas's  new  sedition-law  must 
be  enacted  and  enforced,  suppressing  all  declarations  that 


492  APPENDIX. 

slavery  is  wrong,  whether  made  in  politics,  in  presses,  in  pulpits, 
or  in  private.  We  must  arrest  and  return  their  fugitive  slaves 
with  greedy  pleasure.  We  must  pull  down  our  free-State  Con- 
stitutions. The  whole  atmosphere  must  be  disinfected  from  all 
taint  of  opposition  to  slavery,  before  they  will  cease  to  believe 
that  all  their  troubles  proceed  from  us. 

I  am  quite  aware  they  do  not  state  their  case  precisely  in  this 
way.  Most  of  them  would  probably  say  to  us,  "  Let  us  alone, 
do  nothing  to  us,  and  say  what  you  please  about  slavery."  But 
we  do  let  them  alone — have  never  disturbed  them;  so  that,  after 
all,  it  is  what  we  say  which  dissatisfies  them.  They  will  con- 
tinue to  accuse  us  of  doing  until  we  cease  saying. 

I  am  also  aware  they  have  not  as  yet,  in  terms,  demanded  the 
overthrow  of  our  free-State  Constitutions.  Yet  those  Constitu- 
tions declare  the  wrong  of  slavery,  with  more  solemn  emphasis 
than  do  all  other  sayings  against  it;  and  when  all  these  other 
sayings  shall  have  been  silenced,  the  overthrow  of  these  Consti- 
tutions will  be  demanded,  and  nothing  be  left  to  resist  the 
demand.  It  is  nothing  to  the  contrary,  that  they  do  not  demand 
the  whole  of  this  just  now.  Demanding  what  they  do,  and  for 
the  reason  they  do,  they  can  voluntarily  stop  nowhere  short 
of  this  consummation.  Holding  as  they  do  that  slavery  is 
morally  right  and  socially  elevating,  they  cannot  cease  to 
demand  a  full  national  recognition  of  it,  as  a  legal  right  and  a 
social  blessing. 

Nor  can  we  justifiably  withhold  this  on  any  ground  save  our 
conviction  that  slavery  is  wrong.  If  slavery  is  right,  all  words, 
acts,  laws,  and  constitutions  against  it  are  themselves  wrong, 
and  should  be  silenced  and  swept  away.  If  it  is  right,  we  can- 
not justly  object  to  its  nationality — its  universality;  if  it  is 
wrong,  they  cannot  justly  insist  upon  its  extension — its  enlarge- 
ment. All  they  ask  we  could  readily  grant,  if  we  thought 
slavery  right;  all  we  ask  they  could  as  readily  grant,  if  they 
thought  it  wrong.  Their  thinking  it  right,  and  our  thinking  it 
wrong,  is  the  precise  fact  upon  which  depends  the  whole  con- 
troversy. Thinking  it  right,  as  they  do,  they  are  not  to  blame 
for  desiring  its  full  recognition,  as  being  right;  but,  thinking  it 
wrong,  as  we  do,  can  we  yield  to  them  ?  Can  we  cast  our  votes 


APPENDIX.  493 

with  their  view  and  against  our  own  ?  In  view  of  our  moral, 
oocial,  and  political  responsibilities,  can  we  do  this  ? 

Wrong  as  we  think  slavery  is,  we  can  yet  afford  to  let  it  alone 
where  it  is,  because  that  much  is  due  to  the  necessity  arising 
from  its  actual  presence  in  the  nation;  but  can  we,  while  our 
votes  will  prevent  it,  allow  it  to  spread  into  the  National  Terri- 
tories, and  to  overrun  us  here  in  these  free  States  ?  If  our 
sense  of  duty  forbids  this,  then  let  us  stand  by  our  duty  fear- 
lessly and  effectively.  Let  us  be  diverted  by  none  of  those 
sophistical  contrivances  wherewith  we  are  so  industriously  plied 
and  belabored — contrivances  such  as  groping  for  some  middle 
ground  between  the  right  and  the  wrong,  vain  as  the  search  for 
a  man  who  should  be  neither  a  living  man  nor  a  dead  man;  such 
as  a  policy  of  "  don't  care"  on  a  question  about  which  all  true 
men  do  care;  such  as  Union  appeals  beseeching  true  Union  men 
to  yield  to  Disunionists,  reversing  the  divine  rule,  and  calling, 
not  the  sinners,  but  the  righteous  to  repentance;  such  as  invoca- 
tions to  Washington,  imploring  men  to  unsay  what  Washington 
said,  and  undo  what  Washington  did. 

Neither  let  us  be  slandered  from  our  duty  by  false  accusations 
against  us,  nor  frightened  from  it  by  menaces  of  destruction  to 
the  government  or  of  dungeons  to  ourselves.  LET  us  HAVE 

FAITH  THAT  RlGHT  MAKES  MlGHT,  AND  IN  THAT  FAITH  LET  US, 
TO  THE  END,  DARE  TO  DO  OUE  DUTY  AS  WE  UNDERSTAND  IT. 


m. 

LETTER, 

TO  THE   UNCONDITIONAL   UNION  MEN. 

(See  Ch.  XLIX.) 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
WASHINGTON,  August  26,  1863. 
Hon.  James  C.  Conkling. 

MY  DEAR  SIK:  Your  letter  inviting  me  to  attend  a  mass- 
meeting  of  unconditional  Union  men,  to  be  held  at  the  capital 
of  Illinois,  on  the  3d  day  of  September,  has  been  received.  It 


494  APPENDIX. 

would  be  very  agreeable  for  me  thus  to  meet  my  old  friends  at 
my  own  home;  but  I  cannot  just  now  be  absent  from  here  so 
long  as  a  visit  there  would  require. 

The  meeting  is  to  be  of  all  those  who  maintain  unconditional 
devotion  to  the  Union;  and  I  am  sure  that  my  old  political 
friends  will  thank  me  for  tendering,  as  I  do,  the  nation's  grati- 
tude to  those  other  noble  men  whom  no  partisan  malice  or  parti- 
san hope  can  make  false  to  the  nation's  life. 

There  are  those  who  are  dissatisfied  with  me.  To  such  I 
would  say:  You  desire  peace,  and  you  blame  me  that  we  do  not 
have  it.  But  how  can  we  attain  it  ?  There  are  but  three  con- 
ceivable ways.  First,  to  suppress  the  rebellion  by  force  of 
arms.  This  I  am  trying  to  do.  Are  you  for  it  ?  If  you  are,  so 
far  we  are  agreed.  If  you  are  not  for  it,  a  second  way  is  to  give 
up  the  Union.  I  am  against  this.  Are  you  for  it  ?  If  you  are, 
you  should  say  so  plainly.  If  you  are  not  for  force,  nor  yet  for 
dissolution,  there  only  remains  some  imaginable  compromise. 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  compromise  embracing  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  Union  is  now  possible.  All  that  I  learn  leads  to  a 
directly  opposite  belief.  The  strength  of  the  rebellion  is  its 
military,  its  army.  That  army  dominates  all  the  country,  and 
all  the  people,  within  its  range.  Any  offer  of  terms  made  by 
any  man  or  men  within  that  range,  in  opposition  to  that  army, 
is  simply  nothing  for  the  present;  because  such  man  or  men 
have  no  power  whatever  to  enforce  their  side  of  a  compromise, 
if  one  were  made  with  them. 

To  illustrate:  Suppose  refugees  from  the  South  and  peace 
men  of  the  North  get  together  in  convention,  and  frame  and 
proclaim  a  compromise  embracing  a  restoration  of  the  Union. 
In  what  way  can  that  compromise  be  used  to  keep  Lee's  army 
out  of  Pennsylvania  ?  Meade's  army  can  keep  Lee's  army  out  of 
Pennsylvania,  and,  I  think,  can  ultimately  drive  it  out  of  exist- 
ence. But  no  paper  compromise  to  which  the  controllers  of 
Lee's  army  are  not  agreed  can  at  all  affect  that  army.  In  an 
effort  at  such  compromise  we  would  waste  time,  which  the 
enemy  would  improve  to  our  disadvantage;  and  that  would 
be  all. 

A  compromise,  to  be   effective,  must  be  made   either  with 


APPENDIX.  495 

those  who  control  the  rebel  army,  or  with  the  people,  first  liber- 
ated from  the  domination  of  that  army  by  the  success  of  our 
own  army.  Now,  allow  me  to  assure  you  that  no  word  or  inti- 
mation from  that  rebel  army,  or  from  any  of  the  men  control- 
ling it,  in  relation  to  any  peace  compromise,  has  ever  come  to 
my  knowledge  or  belief.  All  charges  and  insinuations  to  the 
contrary  are  deceptive  and  groundless.  And  I  promise  you 
that  if  any  such  proposition  shall  hereafter  come,  it  shall  not  be 
rejected  and  kept  a  secret  from  you.  I  freely  acknowledge 
myself  to  be  the  servant  of  the  people,  according  to  the  bond  of 
service,  the  United  States  Constitution;  and  that,  as  such,  I  am 
responsible  to  them. 

But  to  be  plain.  You  are  dissatisfied  with  me  about  the 
negro.  Quite  likely  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  between 
you  and  myself  upon  that  subject.  I  certainly  wish. that  all 
men  could  be  free,  while  you,  I  suppose,  do  not.  Yet  I  have 
neither  adopted  nor  proposed  any  measure  which  is  not  consist- 
ent with  even  your  view,  provided  that  you  are  for  the  Union. 
I  suggested  compensated  emancipation;  to  which  you  replied 
you  wished  not  to  be  taxed  to  buy  negroes.  But  I  had  not 
asked  you  to  be  taxed  to  buy  negroes,  except  in  such  way  as  to 
save  you  from  greater  taxation  to  save  the  Union  exclusively  by 
other  means. 

You  dislike  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  and  perhaps 
would  have  it  retracted.  You  say  it  is  unconstitutional.  I 
think  differently.  I  think  the  Constitution  invests  its  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  with  the  law  of  war  in  time  of  war.  The  most 
that  can  be  said,  if  so  much,  is,  that  slaves  are  property.  Is 
there,  has  there  ever  been,  any  question  that  by  the  law  of  war, 
property,  both  of  enemies  and  friends,  may  be  taken  when 
needed  ?  And  is  it  not  needed  whenever  it  helps  us  and  hurts 
the  enemy  ?  Armies,  the  world  over,  destroy  enemies'  property 
when  they  cannot  use  it;  and  even  destroy  their  own  to  keep  it 
from  the  enemy.  Civilized  belligerents  do  all  in  their  power  to 
help  themselves  or  hurt  the  enemy,  except  a  few  things  regarded 
as  barbarous  or  cruel.  Among  the  exceptions  are  the  massacre 
of  vanquished  foes  and  non-combatants,  male  and  female. 

But  the  Proclamation,  as  law,  either  is  valid  or  is  not  valid. 


496  APPENDIX. 

If  it  is  not  valid,  it  needs  no  retraction.  If  it  is  valid,  it  cannot 
be  retracted,  any  more  than  the  dead  can  be  brought  to  life. 
Some  of  you  profess  to  think  its  retraction  would  operate  favor- 
ably for  the  Union.  Why  better  after  the  retraction  than 
before  the  issue  ?  There  was  more  than  a  year  and  a  half  of 
trial  to  suppress  the  rebellion  before  the  Proclamation  was 
issued,  the  last  one  hundred  days  of  which  passed  under  an 
explicit  notice  that  it  was  coming,  unless  averted  by  those  in 
revolt  returning  to  their  allegiance.  The  war  has  certainly 
progressed  as  favorably  for  us  since  the  issue  of  the  Proclama- 
tion as  before. 

I  know,  as  fully  as  one  can  know  the  opinions  of  others,  that 
some  of  the  commanders  of  our  armies  in  the  field,  who  have 
given  us  our  most  important  victories,  believe  the  Emancipation 
policy  and  the  use  of  colored  troops  constitute  the  heaviest 
blows  yet  dealt  to  the  rebellion,  and  that  at  least  one  of  those 
important  successes  could  not  have  been  achieved  when  it  was 
but  for  the  aid  of  black  soldiers. 

Among  the  commanders  who  hold  these  views  are  some  who 
have  never  had  any  affinity  with  what  is  called  "  Abolitionism," 
or  with  "  Republican  party  politics,"  but  who  hold  them  purely 
as  military  opinions.  I  submit  their  opinions  as  entitled  to  some 
weight  against  the  objections  often  urged  that  emancipation 
and  arming  the  blacks  are  unwise  as  military  measures,  and 
were  not  adopted  as  such  in  good  faith. 

You  say  that  you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes.  Some  of 
them  seem  willing  to  fight  for  you;  but  no  matter.  Fight  you, 
then,  exclusively  to  save  the  Union.  I  issued  the  Proclamation 
on  purpose  to  aid  you  in  saving  the  Union.  Whenever  you 
shall  have  conquered  all  resistance  to  the  Union,  if  I  shall  urge 
you  to  continue  fighting,  it  will  be  an  apt  time  then  for  you  to 
declare  you  will  not  fight  to  free  negroes.  I  thought  that  in 
your  struggle  for  the  Union,  to  whatever  extent  the  negroes 
should  cease  helping  the  enemy,  to  that  extent  it  weakened  the 
enemy  in  his  resistance  to  you.  Do  you  think  differently  ?  I 
thought  that  whatever  negroes  can  be  got  to  do  as  soldiers, 
leaves  just  so  much  less  for  white  soldiers  to  do  in  saving  the 
Union.  Does  it  appear  otherwise  to  you  ?  But  negroes,  like 


APPENDIX.  497 

other  people,  act  upon  motives.  Why  should  they  do  anything 
for  us  if  we  will  do  nothing  for  them  ?  If  they  stake  their  lives 
for  us  they  must  be  prompted  by  the  strongest  motive,  even  the 
promise  of  freedom.  And  the  promise,  being  made,  must  be  kept. 

The  signs  look  better.  The  Father  of  Waters  again  goes 
unvexed  to  the  sea.  Thanks  to  the  great  Northwest  for  it;  nor 
yet  wholly  to  them.  Three  hundred  miles  up  they  met  New 
England,  Empire,  Keystone,  and  Jersey,  hewing  their  way  right 
and  left.  The  sunny  South,  too,  in  more  colors  than  one,  also 
lent  a  helping  hand.  On  the  spot,  their  part  of  the  history  was 
jotted  down  in  black  and  white.  The  job  was  a  great  national 
one,  and  let  none  be  slighted  who  bore  an  honorable  part  in  it. 
And  while  those  who  have  cleared  the  great  river  may  well  be 
proud,  even  that  is  not  all.  It  is  hard  to  say  that  anything  has 
been  more  bravely  and  well  done  than  at  Antietam,  Murfrees- 
borough,  Gettysburg,  and  on  many  fields  of  less  note.  Nor  must 
Uncle  Sam's  web-feet  be  forgotten.  At  all  the  watery  margins 
they  have  been  present,  not  only  on  the  deep  sea,  the  broad  bay, 
and  the  rapid  river,  but  also  up  the  narrow,  muddy  bayou,  and 
wherever  the  ground  was  a  little  damp,  they  have  been  and 
made  their  tracks.  Thanks  to  all.  For  the  great  Republic; 
for  the  principle  it  lives  by  and  keeps  alive;  for  man's  vast 
future — thanks  to  all. 

Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I  hope  it  will 
come  soon,  and  come  to  stay;  and  so  come  as  to  be  worth  the 
keeping  in  all  future  time.  It  will  then  have  been  proved  that 
among  freemen  there  can  be  no  successful  appeal  from  the  ballot 
to  the  bullet,  and  that  they  who  take  such  appeal  are  sure  to 
lose  their  case  and  pay  the  cost.  And  there  will  be  some  black 
men  who  can  remember  that  with  silent  tongue,  and  clinched 
teeth,  and  steady  eye,  and  well-poised  bayonet,  they  have  helped 
mankind  on  to  this  great  consummation,  while  I  fear  there  will 
be  some  white  ones  unable  to  forget  that  with  malignant  heart 
and  deceitful  speech  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it. 

Still,  let  us  not  be  over-sanguine  of  a  speedy,  final  triumph. 
Let  us  be  quite  sober.  Let  us  diligently  apply  the  means,  never 
doubting  that  a  just  God,  in  His  own  good  time,  will  give  us 
the  rightful  result. 

Yours,  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN-. 


498  APPENDIX. 


IV. 

LETTER, 

CONCERNING  THE    GOVERNMENT'S   ATTITUDE    TOWARDS    SLAVERY. 

(See  Ch.  XLI.) 

GOVERNOR  BRAMLETTE  and  some  other  Kentucky  gentlemen 
having  called  upon  the  President  in  relation  to  the  draft  in 
Kentucky,  the  following  letter  from  the  President  was  called 
forth  by  the  conversation  which  then  ensued: 

EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
WASHINGTON,  April  4,  1864. 

A.  €r.  Hodges,  Esq.,  Frankfort,  Ey. 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  You  ask  me  to  put  in  writing  the  substance  of 
what  I  verbally  said  the  other  day,  in  your  presence,  to  Gov- 
ernor Bramlette  and  Senator  Dixon.  It  was  about  as  follows: 

"  I  am  naturally  antislavery.  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  noth- 
ing is  wrong.  I  cannot  remember  when  I  did  not  so  think  and 
feel,  and  yet  I  have  never  understood  that  the  Presidency  con- 
ferred upon  me  an  unrestricted  right  to  act  officially  upon  this 
judgment  and  feeling.  It  was  in  the  oath  I  took  that  I  would, 
to  the  best  of  my  ability,  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States.  I  could  not  take  the  office  with- 
out taking  the  oath.  Nor  was  it  my  view  that  I  might  take  an 
oath  to  get  power,  and  break  the  oath  in  using  the  power.  I 
understood,  too,  that  in  ordinary  civil  administration  this  oath 
even  forbade  me  to  practically  indulge  my  primary  abstract 
judgment  on  the  moral  question  of  slavery.  I  had  publicly 
declared  this  many  times,  and  in  many  ways.  And  I  aver  that, 
to  this  day,  I  have  done  no  official  act  in  mere  deference  to  my 
abstract  judgment  and  feeling  on  slavery.  I  did  understand, 
however,  that  my  oath  to  preserve  the  Constitution  to  the  best 
of  my  ability  imposed  upon  me  the  duty  of  preserving,  by 
every  indispensable  means,  that  government — that  nation,  of 
which  that  Constitution  was  the  organic  law.  Was  it  possible 
to  lose  the  nation  and  yet  preserve  the  Constitution  ?  By  gen- 


APPENDIX.  499 

eral  law,  life  and  limb  must  be  protected;  yet  often  a  limb  must 
be  amputated  to  save  a  life;  but  a  life  is  never  wisely  given  to 
save  a  limb.  I  felt  that  measures  otherwise  unconstitutional 
might  become  lawful  by  becoming  indispensable  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  through  the  preservation  of  the  nation. 
Right  or  wrong,  I  assumed  this  ground,  and  now  avow  it.  I 
could  not  feel  that,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  I  had  even  tried  to 
preserve  the  Constitution,  if,  to  save  slavery  or  any  minor  mat- 
ter, I  should  permit  the  wreck  of  government,  country,  and  Con- 
stitutional together.  When,  early  in  the  war,  General  Fremont 
attempted  military  emancipation,  I  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not 
then  think  it  an  indispensable  necessity.  When,  a  little  later, 
General  Cameron,  then  Secretary  of  War.  suggested  the  arming 
of  the  blacks,  I  objected,  because  I  did  not  yet  think  it  an  indis- 
pensable necessity.  When,  still  later,  General  Hunter  attempted 
military  emancipation,  I  again  forbade  it,  because  I  did  not  yet 
think  the  indispensable  necessity  had  come.  When,  in  March, 
and  May,  and  July,  1862,  I  made  earnest  and  successive  appeals 
to  the  border-States  to  favor  compensated  emancipation,  I 
believed  the  indispensable  necessity  for  military  emancipation 
and  arming  the  blacks  would  come,  unless  averted  by  that 
measure.  They  declined  the  proposition,  and  I  was,  in  my  best 
judgment,  driven  to  the  alternative  of  either  surrendering  the 
Union,  and  with  it  the  Constitution,  or  of  laying  strong  hand 
upon  the  colored  element.  I  chose  the  latter.  In  choosing  it, 
I  hoped  for  greater  gain  than  loss,  but  of  this  I  was  not  entirely 
confident.  More  than  a  year  of  trial  now  shows  no  loss  by  it  in 
our  foreign  relations,  none  in  our  home  popular  sentiment,  none 
in  our  white  military  force,  no  loss  by  it  anyhow  or  anywhere. 
Ou  the  contrary,  it  shows  a  gain  of  quite  a  hundred  and  thirty 
thousand  soldiers,  seamen,  and  laborers.  These  are  palpable 
facts,  about  which,  as  facts,  there  can  be  no  caviling.  We  have 
the  men,  and  we  could  not  have  had  them  without  the  measure. 
"  And  now  let  any  Union  man  who  complains  of  the  measure 
test  himself  by  writing  down  in  one  line  that  he  is  for  subdi^ng 
the  rebellion  by  force  of  arms,  and  in  the  next  that  he  is  for 
taking  three  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  men  from  the  Union 
side  and  placing  them  where  they  would  be  best  for  the  measure 


500  APPENDIX. 

he  condemns.    If  he  cannot  face  his  case  so  stated,  it  is  only 
because  he  cannot  face  the  truth." 

I  add  a  word  which  was  not  in  the  verbal  conversation.  In 
telling  this  tale,  I  attempt  no  compliment  to  my  own  sagacity,  I 
claim  not  to  have  controlled  events,  but  confess  plainly  that 
events  have  controlled  me.  Now,  at  the  end  of  three  years'  strug- 
gle, the  nation's  condition  is  not  what  either  party,  or  any  man, 
devised  or  expected.  God  alone  can  claim  it.  Whither  it  is 
tending  seems  plain.  If  God  now  wills  the  removal  of  a  great 
wrong,  and  wills  also  that  we  of  the  North,  as  well  as  you  of 
the  South,  shall  pay  fairly  for  our  complicity  in  that  wrong, 
impartial  history  will  find  therein  new  causes  to  attest  and 
revere  the  justice  and  goodness  of  God. 

Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 


V. 
POEM, 

BY  TOM   TAYLOR. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN* 
FOULLY  ASSASSINATED,  APRIL  14, 1865. 

You  lay  a  wreath  on  murdered  Lincoln's  bier, 
You,  who  with  mocking  pencil  wont  to  trace, 

Broad  for  the  self-complacent  British  sneer, 
His  length  of  shambling  limb,  his  furrowed  face, 

His  gaunt,  gnarled  hands,  his  unkempt,  bristling  hair, 

His  garb  uncouth,  his  bearing  ill  at  ease, 
His  lack  of  all  we  prize  as  debonair, 

Of  power  or  will  to  shine,  of  art  to  please; 

*  This  tribute  appeared  in  the  London  Punch,  which,  up  to  the  time  of  the  assassina- 
tion of  Mr.  Lincoln,  had  ridiculed  and  maligned  him  with  all  its  well-known  powers  01 
pen  and  pencil.  It  is  the  poem  alluded  to  on  page  402. 


APPENDIX.  501 

You,  whose  smart  pen  backed  up  the  pencil's  laugh, 
Judging  each  step  as  though  the  way  were  plain, 

Reckless,  so  it  could  point  its  paragraph 
Of  chief's  perplexity,  or  people's  pain: 

Beside  this  corpse,  that  bears  for  winding-sheet 
The  Stars  and  Stripes  he  lived  to  rear  anew, 

Between  the  mourners  at  his  head  and  feet, 
Say,  scurrile  jester,  is  there  room  for  you? 

Yes :  he  had  lived  to  shame  me  from  my  sneer, 

To  lame  my  pencil,  and  confute  my  pen; 
To  make  me  own  this  hind  of  princes  peer, 

This  rail-splitter  a  true-born  king  of  men. 

My  shallow  judgment  I  had  learned  to  rue, 

Noting  how  to  occasion's  height  he  rose; 
How  his  quaint  wit  made  home-truth  seem  more  true; 

How,  iron-like,  his  temper  grew  by  blows. 

How  humble,  yet  how  hopeful,  he  could  be; 
i    How,  in  good  fortune  and  in  ill,  the  same; 
Nor  bitter  in  success,  nor  boastful  he, 
Thirsty  for  gold,  nor  feverish  for  fame. 

He  went  about  his  work, — such  work  as  few 
Ever  had  laid  on  head  and  heart  and  hand, — 

As  one  who  knows,  where  there's  a  task  to  do, 

Man's  honest  will  must  Heaven's  good  grace  command; 

Who  trusts  the  strength  will  with  the  burden  grow, 
That  God  makes  instruments  to  work  his  will, 

If  but  that  will  we  can  arrive  to  know, 

Nor  tamper  with  the  weights  of  good  and  ill. 

So  he  went  forth  to  battle,  on  the  side 

That  he  felt  clear  was  Liberty's  and  Right's, 

As  in  his  peasant  boyhood  he  had  plied 

His  warfare  with  rude  Nature's  thwarting  mights; 

The  uncleared  forest,  the  unbroken  soil, 
The  iron-bark,  that  turns  the  lumberer's  ax, 


502  APPENDIX. 

The  rapid,  that  o'erbears  the  boatman's  toil, 

The  prairie,  hiding  the  mazed  wanderer's  tracks, 

The  ambushed  Indian,  and  the  prowling  bear, — 
Such  were  the  deeds  that  helped  his  youth  to  train: 

Rough  culture,  but  such  trees  large  fruit  may  bear, 
If  but  their  stocks  be  of  right  girth  and  grain. 

So  he  grew  up,  a  destined  work  to  do, 

And  lived  to  do  it:  four  long-suffering  years' 

Hl-fate,  ill-feeling,  ill-report,  lived  through, 
And  then  he  heard  the  hisses  change  to  cheers, 

The  taunts  to  tribute,  the  abuse  to  praise, 

And  took  both  with  the  same  unwavering  mood; 

Till,  as  he  came  on  light,  from  darkling  days, 

And  seemed  to  touch  the  goal  from  where  he  stood, 

A  felon  hand,  between  the  goal  and  him, 

Reached  from  behind  his  back,  a  trigger  prest, 

And  those  perplexed  and  patient  eyes  were  dim, 
Those  gaunt,  long-laboring  limbs  were  laid  to  restl 

The  words  of  mercy  were  upon  his  lips, 
Forgiveness  in  his  heart  and  on  his  pen, 

When  this  vile  murderer  brought  swift  eclipse 
To  thoughts  of  peace  on  earth,  good-will  to  men. 

The  Old  World  and  the  New,  from  sea  te  sea, 
Utter  one  voice  of  sympathy  and  shame: 

Sore  heart,  so  stopped  when  it  at  last  beat  high; 
Sad  life,  cut  short  just  as  its  triumph  came! 

A  deed  accurst!     Strokes  have  been  struck  before 
By  the  assassin's  hand,  whereof  men  doubt 

If  more  of  horror  or  disgrace  they  bore; 

But  thy  foul  crime,  like  Cain's,  stands  darkly  out. 

Vile  hand,  that  brandest  murder  on  a  strife, 

Whate'er  its  grounds,  stoutly  and  nobly  striven; 

And  with  the  martyr's  crown  crown  est  a  life 
With  much  to  praise,  little  to  be  forgiven.- 


INDEX. 


ABOLITIONISTS,  melting  into  the  new  par- 
ty, 150;  trying  to  convert  Mr.  Lincoln, 
155;  not  yet  ready  to  follow  him,  170 

Anderson,  Maj.  R.,  in  command  of  Fort 
Sumter,  195 

Anti-coercion  meetings  at  the  North,  223 

Antietam  Creek,  battle  of,  325;  President's 
doubt  as  to  its  being  a  victory,  334 

Armstrong,  Jack,  of  Clary's  Grove,  wrest- 
ling match  with  Lincoln,  76 

Armstrong,  Hannah,  appealing  to  Lincoln 
to  defend  her  son,  164;  forebodings  of 
Lincoln's  assassination,  198 

Armstrong,  William  D.,  son  of  Jack  and 
Hannah,  accused  of  murder  and  de- 
fended by  Lincoln,  163 

Arlington  House,  Lee  family  mansion, 
Rebel  flag  on,  235-238 

Army  of  the  Potomac,  representative  ar- 
my, 384 

Army  organization,  complications  of  State 
and  National  authority,  268;  difficul- 
ties, 271 ;  formative  processes,  284 

Assassination,  conspiracy  and  prepara- 
tions for,  458;  accomplished,  459;  com- 
ments of  European  powers  and  press, 
464. 

Ashmun,  George,  Chairman  of  Chicago 
Nat.  Rep.  Convention,  184;  appoint- 
ment to  meet  President,  etc.,  459 

BAKER,  E.  D.,  Lincoln's  withdrawal  in  his 
favor  as  a  candidate  for  Congress,  128 

Baltimore,  Secession  feeling  in,  204;  attack 
upon  Massachusetts  6th  Reg.,  230;  city 
captured  by  troops  under  Gen.  B.  F. 
Butler,  232-236;  National  Convention  of 
Rep.  party  held  there,  428 

Bates,  Edward,  appointed  Attorney-Gen- 
eral, 215;  resigned,  442 

Beauregard,  Gen.  P.  G.  T.,  in  command  of 
Rebel  troops  at  Manassas  Junction,  254 

Berry,  business  partner  of  Lincoln  in  New 
Salem,  94-96 

Big  Bethel,  fight,  254 

Blackhawk  War,  outbreak  of,  81;  Still- 
man's  defeat,  85;  Independent  Spy 
Company,  88 

Blackstone's  Commentaries,  borrowed  of 
JohnT.  Stuart  by  Lincoln,  101 

Blair,  Montgomery,  Postmaster-General, 
215;  opposed  to  Proclamation  of  Eman- 
cipation, 333;  resigned,  442 

Blockade  of  Southern  seaports,  first  pro- 
clamation of,  250;  effectiveness  of,  262 

Bloomington,  111.,  State  Convention  of 
Anti- Nebraska  men  held  there,  155; 
speech  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  157 

Booth,  John  Wilkes,  actor  and  assassin, 
459;  death  of,  460 

Border  States,  saved  to  the  Union,  197,  221, 
350;  furnishing  volunteers  for  the  ar- 
my, 355;  disturbed  by  Emancipation, 
365;  reconstruction  of,  374 


Brandy  Station,  battle  of,  388 

Breckmridge,  great  speech  in  murder- 
case  and  repulse  of  young  Lincoln's 
compliments,  58 

Breckinridge,  John  C.,  Vice-President,  160; 
nomination  for  President,  184 

Bryant,  William  Cullen,  presided  at 
Cooper  Institute  meeting  and  intro- 
duced Mr.  Lincoln,  179 

Buchanan,  James,  nominated  for  Presi- 
dent, 160;  character  of  his  administra- 
tion, 190-196;  accompanies  Mr.  Lincoln 
at  his  inauguration,  208 

Bull  Run,  battle  of,  255;  effects  of,  257; 
false  accounts  of,  265 

Burnside,  Gen.  Ambrose  E.,  succeeded 
McClellan  in  command,  326;  successes 
in  North  Carolina,  a50;  plan  of  cam- 
paign on  Potomac,  356;  removal  from 
command,  358;  commanded  in  Ohio, 
378;  further  services,  414 

Bushnell  C.  S.,  and  the  construction  of  the 
Monitor,  298 

Butler,  Gen.  B.  F.,  commanding  Massachu- 
setts troops  in  Maryland,  233;  sus- 
pends writ  of  Habeas  Corpus,  236;  cap- 
ture of  Baltimore,  236;  declares  fugi- 
tives from  slavery  contraband,  277 

Butler,  William,  friend  with  whom  Lincoln 
boarded,  118 

CABINET,  the,  formation  of,  189,  214;  Opin- 
ions with  reference  to  Fort  Sumter,  222 

Calhoun,  surveyor  of  Sangamon  County,  95 

Call  for  troops,  first,  224;  from  four  States 
to  repel  second  invasion,  389 

Cameron,  Simon,  Secretary  of  War,  214; 
resignation  of,  316 

Campbell,  J.  A.,  at  Peace  Conference  in 
Hampton  Roads,  446;  action  with  ref- 
erence to  Lee's  surrender,  455 

Carpenter,  Frank  B.,  painting  picture  of 
first  reading  of  Emancipation  Procla- 
mation, 332;  conversations  with  Mr. 
Lincoln,  333 

Cartwright,  Rev.  Peter,  candidate  for  Con- 
gress against  Lincoln  and  defeated,  133 

Central  Illinois  Gazette,  newspaper  nomi- 
nation of  Lincoln  for  the  Presidency, 
174 

Civil  war,  threats  of,  in  case  of  Lincoln's 
election,  160;  termination  of,  455 

Champaign  County,  111.,  Lincoln  retires 
from  a  murder-case  in,  140;  received 
there  the  news  of  his  votes  for  Vice- 
President,  160;  nominated  first  for 
President  in,  174 

Chancellorsville,  battle  of,  etc.,  386, 387 

Chantilly,  battle  of,  231 

Charleston,  S.  C.,  forts  in  and  about  har- 
bor of, 195;  capture  of,  by  Union  troops, 
446 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  candidacy  at  Chicago, 
183;  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  215, 


504 


INDEX. 


270;    resigned,   442;   appointed   Chief 

Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  443 
Chicago,  Republican  National  Convention 

in  1860, 183 
Clary's  Grove  Boys,  character  of,  76;  elect 

Lincoln  their  captain,  82 
Clay.  Henry,  political  idol  of  Lincoln,  128; 

defeat   of,  for   Presidency,    130;   put 

aside,  135;  funeral  oration  by  Lincoln, 

145 
Colonization,  chimerical  ideas  entertained, 

etc.,  145;  recommended  in  Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation.  365 
Commissioners,  Confederate,  not    recog- 
nized, 217 

Committee  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War,  290 
Compensation  for  slaves  of  loyal  owners, 

365 
Confederacy,  Southern,  formation  of,  195; 

first  army  of,  225 
Congress  of  United  States,  call  for  extra 

session,  227;  first  war-legislation,  259, 

267 
Constitutional     Amendment     prohibiting 

slavery,  445 

Cooper  Institute  speech,  178 
Copperheads,    name   given   to   Northern 

Rebels,  214;  useful  allies  of  the  South, 

287,389 
Crawford,  Josiah,  owner  of  "  Weems'  Life 

of  Washington"  spoiled  by  Lincoln,  45 
Crisis,  financial,  of  18^,  119 
Crittenden  Compromise,  failure  of,  213 
Cruelty  to  Animals,  lecture  and  essay  by 

young  Lincoln,  48. 

DAVIS,  DAVID,  appointed  to  the  Supreme 
Court,  etc.,  £& 

Davis,  Jefferson,  President  of  the  Confede- 
racy, 213;  predicts  a  bloody  war,  222; 
urges  Virginia  to  hostilities,  232 

Dayton,  William  L.,  candidate  of  People's 
party  for  Vice-President,  159 

Debating  Club,  of  Gentryville,  Ind.,  56;  of 
New  Salem,  HI.,  91 

Decatur,  HI.,  town  of,  near  first  settlement 
of  Lincoln  family,  65;  Lincoln's  first 
stump-speech  in  Illinois  made  there, 
89 

Democratic  party,  condition  of,  in  1854,  etc., 
146;  division  of,  in  1S60,  184;  conven- 
tion of,  in  1864,  431,  435 

Dennison,  Gov.  W.,  of  Ohio,  Chairman  of 
Republican  National  Convention,  430; 
Postmaster-General,  442 

District  of  Columbia,  compensated  emanci- 
pation is  advocated  oy  Lincoln,  136: 
political  condition  of,  in  1861,  205,  349 

Dorsey,  Hazel,  one  of  Lincoln's  Indiana 
school-teachers,  36 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  rival  of  Lincoln  in 
courtship,  121;  author  of  Kansas-Ne- 
braska Act,  146;  speech  at  Springfield, 
111.,  replied  to  by  Lincoln,  147;  candi- 
date for  re-election  to  U.  S.  Senate,  167; 
elected,  173;  nominated  for  President, 
184 

Draft  Act,  recommended  to  Congress,  371 ; 
opposition  to,  increasing,  383,387,396; 
riot  in  New  York  City,  397,  400 

EDWARDS,  MATILDA,  story  of,  122 


Edwards.  Ninian,  brother-in-law  of  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  121 

Eighth  Regiment  Massachusetts  Militia, 
reach  Maryland  under  Gen.  Butler,  233 

Election,  results  of,  in  1860,  187;  in  1863, 
416;  in  1864,  441 

Electoral  Colleges,  report  of  votes  in  1860, 
187;  in  1864,  442 

Ellsworth,  Colonel,  death  of,  246 

Emancipation,  right  and  power,  329,  331 ; 
Congressional  preparation  for,  330; 
reading  of,  332,  334;  second  proclama- 
tion, 365,  368 

England,  sympathy  with  and  support  of 
Confederacy,  249,  261,  383;  warned  not 
to  interfere,  263;  declaration  of  neu- 
trality not  received,  264;  conduct  in 
Trent  affair,  852 

Enquirer,  Richmond,  Va.,  newspaper  de- 
mand for  resumption  of  ownership  of 
District  of  Columbia  by  Virginia  and 
Maryland,  219 

Everett,  Edward,  candidate  of  Constitu- 
tional Union  party  for  Vice-President 
in  1860, 185 

Executive  Mansion,  Washington,  D.  C., 
packed  with  office-seekers,  215;  busi- 
ness arrangements  of,  243;  mails  of, 
282 

FEDERAL  PARTY,  death  of,  90 

Female  suffrage,  assent  to,  in  Lincoln's 
address,  etc.,  112 

Fessenden, William  P.,  appointed  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  442;  resigned,  452 

Fillmore,  Millard,  Vice-President,  135; 
nominee  of  Constitutional  Union  party 
for  President  in  1860, 160 

Finances,  United  States,  Lincoln's  training 
for,  106, 113;  Congress  makes  first  war- 
loan,  260;  European  opinion  of,  261; 
new  loans  and  national  banking  sys- 
tem, 372, 373 

Floyd,  Secretary  of  War  under  Buchanan 
Administration,  196 

Forebodings  concerning  assassination,  198 

Fort  Sumter,  siege  of,  begins,  195;  bom- 
bardment of,  220;  news  of  capture  re- 
ceived at  Washington,  222 

Fourth  of  July,  celebration  in  Washington 
in  1863,  411 

France,  sympathy  with  Confederacy,  249, 
261,  383;  warned  not  to  interfere,  263; 
declaration  of  neutrality  not  received, 
264 

Fredericksburg,  battle  of,  356, 358 

Fremont,  Gen.  John  C.,  nominated  for 
President  by  the  People's  party  in 
1856,  159;  appointed  to  command  De- 
partment of  the  West,  309;  proclama- 
tion of  confiscation,  etc.,  issued  by, 
311;  services,  313,  350;  reference  to,  in 
letter  of  President,  331 

GAME  and  hunting  in  Indiana,  58 

Gentry,  Allen,  Lincoln's  companion  in  first 
flat-boat  trip  down  the  Mississippi,  60, 64 

Gentry,  Gentryville,  store  and  village  in 
Indiana,  36,  49;  Lincoln's  clerkship 
there,  56 ;  at  Gentry's  Landing  and  on 
flat-boat  owned  by  Gentry,  60, 64 

Germany,  sympathy  with  Union  cause,  383 


INDEX. 


505 


Gettysburg,  battle  of,  392,  394;  estimate  of 
forces  engaged,  395;  dedication  of 
cemetery  and  speeches,  414 

Gist,  Governor  of  South  Carolina  in  1860, 
issued  circular  letter  to  other  Southern 
States.  192 

Gosport  Navy  Yard,  Norfolk,  Va.,  burning 
of,  etc.,  218,  235 

Graham,  Minter,  schoolmaster  of  New  Sa- 
lem, HI.,  advises  Lincoln  to  study  gram- 
mar, 78;  instructs  him  in  surveying, 
95 

Grant,  Gen.  Ulysses  S.,  President's  letter 
to  him,  415;  appointed  to  Military  De- 
partment or  the  Wtest,  421 ;  Lieutenant- 
General  in  command  of  all  armies, 
423;  Lincoln's  opinion  of  him,  424;  cor- 
respondence with  Lincoln  on  army 
plans,  443;  in  front  of  Richmond,  453 

Greeley,  Horace,  and  the  Niagara  Falls 
Commissioners,  435 

Greene,  Bowlin,  helps  buy  Lincoln's  effects 
at  sheriff's  sale,  97;  took  care  of  him 
during  melancholia,  etc.,  109 

Grigsby,  Aaron,  brother-in-law  of  Lincoln, 
49 

Grigsby,  Nat,  Lincoln  interrupts  a  speech 
to  step  down  and  speak  to  him,  129 

HABEAS  CORPUS,  Writ  of,  suspended  in 
certain  parts  of  Maryland,  236;  Gen- 
eral Proclamation,  339,  371 ;  test-case  in 
Ohio,  378 

Hall,  Levi,  married  Lincoln's  step-sister 
and  emigrated  to  Illinois  with  him,  65 

Halleck,  Gen.  H.  W.,  appointed  General- 
in-Chief,  318;  views  of  Pope's  cam- 
paign, 322 

Hamlin.  Hannibal,  Vice-President,  183 

Hancock,  Gen.  W.  S.,  remark  in  council  of 
war  at  Gettysburg,  394 

Hanks,  Dennis,  cousin  and  playfellow  of 
Lincoln  in  Kentucky,  19;  in  Indiana, 
27;  goes  to  Illinois,  65;  works  with 
him,  67 

Hanks,  John,  settled  in  Illinois  and  drew 
the  Lincolns  to  follow,  65;  caused  Lin- 
coln's first  speech  in  Illinois,  68;  com- 
panion in  flat-boat  voyage,  etc.,  69; 
gave  him  the  name  and  fame  of  "  Rail- 
splitter,"  181 

Hardin,  General,  Lincoln  withdrew  to  his 
favor,  as  candidate  for  Congress,  in 
18-46, 132 

Harper's  Ferry,  arsenal  burned,  235;  sur- 
render of  troops  in  1862,  825 

Harris,  Miss  C.,  with  the  President  when 
he  was  murdered,  459 

Harrison,  George  W.,  returned  from  Black- 
hawk  War  in  company  with  Lincoln, 
88 

Harrison,  political  campaign,  120 

Hay,  Colonel  John,  Private  Secretary  to 
the  President,  216;  sent  to  meet  Con- 
federate envoys  at  Niagara,  436 

Hazel,  Caleb,  second  schoolmaster  of  Lin- 
coln in  Kentucky,  18 

Herndon,  I.  and  R.,  brothers,  businessmen 
of  New  Salem,  111.,  ultimate  friends  of 
Lincoln,  94 

Herndon,  William  H.,  law-partner  of  Lin- 
coln, 131;  corresponded  with  him  in 


Congress,  134;  report  of  Lincoln's  de- 
spair of  political  affairs,  142:  prevented 
by  Lincoln  from  going  to  Kansas,  154; 
signed  Lincoln's  name  to  the  call  for 
the  Bloomington  Convention,  156; 
makes  half  of  his  next  audience,  158; 
shrinking  consequences  a  little,  169;  the 
old  law-sign  not  to  be  taken  down,  198 

Hill,  Samuel,  Lincoln's  infidel  manuscript 
read  and  burned  in  store  of,  103 

Holt,  Joseph,  Secretary  of  War  at  the 
close  of  the  Buchanan  Administration, 
196 

Hooker,  Gen.  Joseph,  succeeded  Burnside 
in  command  of  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
359, 385;  resigned,  392;  further  services, 
414 

House  Divided  against  Itself,  preparation 
and  delivery  of  speech,  169, 172.  (See 
Appendix.) 

Hunter,  R.  M.  T.,  at  Peace  Conference  in 
Hampton  Roads,  446 

ILLINOIS  CENTRAL  RAILROAD,  disputing  law- 
fee  demanded  by  Lincoln,  162 

Illinois,  State  of,  Lincoln's  emigration  from 
Indiana  to,  65;  politics  and  financial 
excitement  in,  92 

Inauguration,  Presidential,  features  of,  in. 
1861,208;  in  1865,  448 

Indiana,  Territory  and  State,  19;  Lincoln's: 
first  home  there,  25 

Internal  Improvements,  a  hobby  of  Lin- 
coin's  early  political  life.  92, 106,  118 

Invalid  Corps,  on  duty  in  New  York  dur- 
ing Draft  Riots,  398 

JACKSON,  Gen.  ANDREW,  Lincoln  a  "  Jack- 
son man,"  92 

Jayne,  William,  nominating  Lincoln  for 
the  Legislature  without  authority,  150 

Jewett,  W.  C.,  of  Colorado,  with  the  Rebel 
commissioners,  435 

Joint  Debates  of  1856, 160:  of  1858, 173 

Johnson.  Andrew,  nominated  for  Vice- 
President,  430;  Military  Governor  of 
Tennessee,  438;  escapes  assassination, 
etc.,  458 

Johnson,  Herschel  V.,  Douglas-Democratic 
candidate  for  Vice-President,  184 

Johnston  family,  at  time  of  marriage  of 
Mrs.  Johnston  with  Thomas  Lincoln,  32 

Johnston,  John,  step-brother  of  Lincoln, 
32;  partner  in  second  flat-boat  voyage, 
69, 71 ;  letter  to  him  hi  last  illness  of 
Thomas  Lincoln,  144 

Jones,  keeper  of  country  store  in  Gentry- 
ville,  hired  Lincoln  as  salesman,  56 

Journey  to  Washington  in  1861,  speeches 
and  incidents,  201, 204 

KANSAS-NEBRASKA  BILL,  reported  to  U.  S. 

Senate  in  1854, 146 
Kansas  Territory  and  State,  troubles  in, 

154;  stumping  tour  in,  by  Lincoln,  177; 

political  troubles  concerning  military 

management,  404, 406,  428 
Kean,  Laura,  actress  at  Ford's  Theater  at 

assassination  of  the  President,  460 
Kentucky,  neutrality  of,  258 
Kirkpatrick,  competitor  of   Lincoln   for 

captaincy  in  Illinois  Volunteers,  82 


506 


INDEX, 


LAMON,  WARD  H.,  associate  counsel  with 
Lincoln,  140;  duties  at  the  White 
House,  243 

Lane,  Senator  James,  of  Kansas,  speech  in 
defense  of  Lincoln,  429 

Lane.  Joseph,  proslavery  Democratic  can- 
didate for  Vice-President  in  1860, 184 

Lee,  Gen.  Robert  E.,  offered  command  of 
Union  forces,  236;  takes  command  of 
Virginia  State  troops,  240;  surrender 
of,  455 

Letters  of  marque,  Jefferson  Davis  issued 
proclamation  offering,  250 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  birth  and  childhood, 
13-34;  brother,  21;  schooling,  18,  35,  37, 
42;  bodily  strength,  37,55,98;  books, 
40,  44,  46,  78;  writing,  43;  first  stump- 
speaking.  48,  68;  early  temperate  hab- 
its, 48;  clerk  in  a  country  store,  56; 
first  law-studies,  51,  56;  sociability,  54; 
first  flat-boat  voyage,  60;  removal  from 
Indiana  to  Illinois,  65;  second  flat-boat 
voyage,  69;  inventor,  70;  clerk  of  elec- 
tion, 74;  miller,  75;  wrestler,  72,  76; 
captain  of  volunteers  in  the  Blackhawk 
War,  82;  private  soldier,  88;  candidate 
for  the  State  Legislature,  91 ;  merchant, 
94;  law-student,  94;  surveyor,  95;  post- 
master, 95;  bankrupt,  96;  first  love,  99; 
elected  to  the  State  Legislature,  101 ; 
skeptic,  103;  temporary  insanity,  108, 
122;  correspondence  with  Mary  Owens, 
111;  antislavery  protest  in  Illinois 
Legislature,  115;  admitted  to  the  bar. 
118:  betrothal  to  Mary  T<pdd,  121;  duel 
•with  Shields,  124;  marriage,  125;  ad- 
mitted to  practice  in  U.  S.  Circuit 
Court,  127;  elected  to  Congress,  133; 
death  of  his  father,  144;  first  reply  to 
Douglas,  147;  defeated  candidate  for 
the  United  States  Senate,  152, 169, 173; 
Bloomington  speech.  156;  candidate  for 
Vice-President  of  the  United  States, 
159;  "House  divided  against  itself" 
.speech,  170;  editorial  nomination  for 
President  of  the  United  States,  174; 
'Cooper  Institute  speech,  178;  rail-split- 
ter, 181;  nomination  for  the  Presidency 
by  the  Republican  National  Conven- 
tion, 183;  elected  President,  186 :  policy 
before  inauguration,  190;  farewell 
speech  to  citizens  of  Springfield,  202; 
inauguration,  209;  selection  of  Cabinet, 
214;  military  student,  245;  read  no  let- 
ters, 282;  procures  the  construction  of 
the  Monitor  298;  Proclamation  of 
Emancipation,  330,  332,  334;  visiting 
Army  of  Potomac,  340;  loss  of  little 
Willie,  345;  letter  to  the  armies  on  Sab- 
bath-keeping, 347;  watching  armies  in 
the  West,  351,  415;  harassed  to  petu- 
lance, 382;  calumny  and  abuse  of,  402. 
425;  "last,  best,  and  shortest  speech," 
408;  consciousness  of  wearing  out,  408; 
nominated  for  a  second  term,  429,  431 ; 
elected,  441;  inaugurated,  with  ad- 
dress, etc.,  448;  last  visit  to  the  ar- 
my, 452;  entry  of  Richmond  after 
evacuation,  454;  assassination,  459 

Lincoln,  Mrs.  Mary  Todd,  engagement  to 
marry  Abraham  Lincoln,  121;  author 
of  the  "Lost  Township  Letters,"  124; 


marriage,  125 ;  her  husband's  business 
adviser,  139, 150, 162;  life  at  the  White 
House,  244,  403;  calumniated,  375,  376; 
care  of  the  President's  personal  ap- 
pearance, 403;  prostrated  by  his  assas- 
sination, 461. 

Lincoln,  Mrs.  Nancy  Hanks,  mother  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  Chapter  I. ;  death, 
30 

Lincoln,  Mrs.  Sally  Johnston,  step-mother 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,  32;  his  love  for 
her,  34;  care  of  her  in  later  days,  131, 
144;  visit  to  her  before  going  to  Wash- 
ington, and  her  forebodings,  198 

Lincoln,  Robert  Todd,  son  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  childhood.  133;  at  school,  180; 
serving  in  the  army,  418 

Lincoln,  Sally,  or  Nancy,  sister  of  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  17;  marriage  to  Aaron 
Grigsbv,  48;  death,  49 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  father  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, personal  character,  etc.,  Chapter 
I.;  treatment  of  his  son,  60;  death, 
144 

Lincoln,  Thomas,  son  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
"Little  Tad,"  birth  of,  144;  illness,  344 

Lincoln.  Willie,  son  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
birth,  133;  death,  344 

Logan,  Stephen  T.,  law-partner  of  Lin- 
coln, 131;  defeated  for  Congress,  138; 
urging  Lincoln  not  to  give  way  for 
Trumbull,  152 

Long  Bridge  over  Potomac,  slenderly 
guarded,  235;  crossed  by  Union  forces, 
240 

Long,  Dr.,  condoling  with  Lincoln,  etc., 
172 

Long  Nine,  the,  Sangamon  County  dele- 
gation in  the  Illinois  Legislature,  115 

Lost  Township  Letters,  written  by  Mary 
Todd,  story  of,  124 

MACAULEY,  Commodore,  in  command  of 
Gosport  Navy  Yard,  etc.,  218 

Manassas,  military  importance  of,  254:  Sec- 
ond Bull  Run,  battle  of,  321 

Manchester,  England,  letter  of  working- 
men  to  President  Lincoln,  412 

Maryland,  State  of,  ready  for  secession, 
204,  231,  234,  349 

Massachusetts  Sixth  Regiment,  mustered 
for  service,  229;  mobbed  in  Baltimore, 
230 

Massachusetts  War-bill  passed,  201 

Meade,  Gen.  George  G.,  in  command  of 
Army  of  Potomac,  390,  392,  420,  424 

Metzgar  murder-case,  163 

Mexican  War,  opposed  by  Lincoln  in  Con- 
gress, 134 

McClellan,  Gen.  Geo.  B.,  appointed  to  com- 
mand, 273;  systematizing  Army  of  Po- 
tomac, 284;  reports  condition  of  army, 
autumn  of  1861, 286;  army  idea  of  him, 
294;  President's  opinion  of  him,  300; 
return  from  Peninsula,  304,  321;  re-as- 
eumes  command,  305,  324;  political  as- 
pirations, 313,315;  removed  from  com- 
mand, 326;  nominated  for  President  by 
the  Opposition,  437 

McCulloch,  Hugh,  appointed  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury,  452 

McDowell,    Gen.   Irwin,  in   command   of 


INDEX. 


507 


Union  troops  at  the  battle  of  Bull  Run, 
255 

McNamar.  McNeil,  desertion  of  Ann  Rut- 
ledge  by,  100 

Milk-sick,  nature  and  ravages  of,  38 

Mill-dam  at  New  Salem,  on  Sangamon 
River,  on  which  Lincoln's  flat-boat 
stuck,  70;  all  now  left  of  town,  73 

Mississippi  River,  control  of  upper  waters 
retained,  197,  313;  of  mouth  secured, 
350;  entire  control  secured,  393 

Missouri,  State  of,  saved  from  seceding, 
350;  political  troubles  in,  404.  406,  429 

Monitor  iron-clad,  fight  with  Merrimac, 
297;  story  of  her  construction,  298 

Montgomery,  Ala.,  first  seat  of  govern- 
ment of  Southern  Confederacy,  194 

NATIONAL  RIFLES,  Washington,  D.  C.,  sig- 
nificance of  its  history,  206,  236 
Navy  of  United  States,  beginnings  of,  350 
Needham,   Daniel,  wrestling-match  with 

Lincoln,  72 

New  Orleans,  effect  of  the  capture  of,  350 
New  Salem,  111.,  character  and  population 

of,  71.  73 
New  York  Seventh  Regiment,  set  out  for 

Washington,  230;  in  Virginia,  241 
New  York  War-bill,  passage  of,  201 
Nicolay,  John  G.,  Private  Secretary  to 
President  Lincoln,  216 

OFFICE-SEEKERS,  first  disappointment  of, 
by  Lincoln,  188;  throngs  of  them  at 
White  House,  207,  215 

Offutt,  Denton,  employs  Lincoln,  etc.,  to 
build  flat-boat,  69, 70;  ditto  as  salesman 
in  New  Salem,  74;  failure,  81; 

Oglesby,  Qov.  Richard,  action  at  Decatur 
Convention,  180 

Ohio,  political  speeches  in,  by  Lincoln,  177 

Ord,  Gen.  E.  O.  C.,  member  of  President 
Lincoln's  last  council  of  war,  453 

Ordinance  of  Secession  of  Virginia,  239 

Oregon  Territory,  governorship  of,  refused 
by  Lincoln,  138 

Owens,  Mary,  correspondence  with  Lin- 
coln, 111,  120 

PAIN,  JOHN,  with  W.  H.  Herndon,  Lincoln's 
audience  at  State  House  in  Springfield, 
158 

Peace  Commissioners  at  Niagara  Falls, 
435,  et  seq 

Peace  Conference  in  Hampton  Roads,  446 

Peace  Congress,  failure  of,  213 

Pendleton,  George  H.,  Democratic  nomi- 
nee for  Vice-President,  437 

Peninsular  campaign,  plan  for,  adopted, 
295;  close  ofT  300 

Pennsylvania,  War-bill  passed,  201;  6th 
Reg't  Militia  reaches  Washington,  239; 
invasion  of,  by  Lee's  army,  890 

Pensacola,  Florida,  navy-yard  surrendered 
and  forts  besieged,  195 

People's  party,  organization  and  National 
Convention  of,  159 

Peoria,  111. ,  speech  by  Lincoln  in  reply  to 
Douglas,  149 

Pickens,  Governor,  of  South  Carolina,  220 

Pickett,  Gen.,  leader  of  last  charge  of  bat- 
tle of  Gettysburg,  294 


Pirates,  Confederate  privateers  so  declared 

by  Proclamation,  250 
Polk,  James  K.,  President,  course  of,  on 

Mexican  question,  134 
Pope,  Gen.  John,  hi  command  of  the  Army 

of  Virginia,  303;  drifted  out  of  it,  805 ; 

conduct  and  reports  of,  321,  322 
Posey,  reply  to  his  speech  at  Decatur,  111., 

by  Lincoln,  68 

Press,  liberty  of,  restricted,  376,  377 
Private  secretaries  of  the  President,  216; 

offices  and  duties  of,  243,  282 
Protest,  antislavery,  in  Legislature  of  Il- 
linois, by  Lincoln  and  Stone,  115 
Punch,  London  journal,  versified  obituary 

on  Lincoln,  403.    (See  Appendix.) 

RADFOBD  store  in  New  Salem  mobbed,  etc., 
93 

Rail-splitter,  origin  and  occasion  of  title, 
181 

Rathbone,  Major  Henry,  with  the  President 
at  Ford's  Theater,  459 

Reconstruction,  beginnings  of,  374,  375; 
act  providing  for,  passed  and  vetoed, 
434 

Regular  army,  increased  at  the  beginning, 
etc.,  237 

Republican  party,  elements  of,  148;  to 
Congress,  162;  first  State  Convention 
of,  in  Illinois,  168;  second  ditto,  180: 
first  National  Convention,  182;  second 
ditto,  426 

Richmond,  Virginia,  latent  Unionism  in, 
204 

Riney,  Zachariah,  first  schoolmaster  of 
Lincoln,  18 

Roby,  Polly,  anecdotes  of,  and  Lincoln, 
43,61 

Russia,  friendship  for  United  States,  884 

Rutledge,  Ann,  story  of  her  first  betrothal, 
99;  to  Lincoln,  107;  death,  108 

Rutledge,  James,  mill-owner  at  New  Sa- 
lem, prevents  fight,  etc.,  77;  urged  Lin- 
coln to  run  for  Legislature,  91 

SANGAMON  RTVEB,  house  built  and  work 
done  on  bank  of.  by  Abraham  Lincoln, 
67;  flat-boat  built  there  by  him,  69; 
piloting  flat-boat  down  it  in  a  flood,  74; 
testing  it  for  steamboat  navigation,  79 

Sangamontown,  strolls  into,  70 

Schoolmasters  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  Zach- 
ariah Riney,  18;  Caleb  Hazel,  18;  Ha- 
zel Dorsey,  35,  40;  Andrew  Crawford, 
42;  Minter  Graham,  78 

Scott,  Gen.  Winfleld,  directing  organiza- 
tion of  District  of  Columbia  militia, 
206;  co-operating  with  President  Lin- 
coln in  1861, 207;  advising  appointment 
of  Gen.  McClellan,  278;  resignation  and 
retirement,  274 

Secession,  original  purposes,  211 ;  ripened 
by  Lincoln's  election,  192;  cotton-States 
act,  194;  Virginia  Act,  240;  recognized 
only  as  sedition,  224,  227,  874 

Second  term,  beginning  of  political  cam- 
paign for,  421,  428 

Seventh  Regiment,  N.  Y.  N.  G.,  230 

Seward,  William  H.,  "Irrepressible  Con- 
flict" services,  171;  candidate  for  Presi- 
dential nomination,  182 ;  appointed  Sec- 


508 


INDEX. 


retary  of  State,  214;  personal  relations 
to  Mr.  Lincoln,  249;  wounded  by  assas- 
sins, 458 

Seymour,  Horatio,  anti-administration 
Governor  of  New  York,  896, 400;  Chair- 
man of  Democratic  National  Conven- 
tion, 437 

Shakespeare,  read  by  Lincoln  while  riding 
the  Judicial  District  circuit,  139 

Shawneetown,  charter  of  bank  at.  106 

Sherman,  Gen.  W.  T.,  in  command  of  the 
Western  armies,  423;  march  to  the  sea, 
442;  President's  doubt  of  its  wisdom, 
443;  northward  movement  begun,  446; 
at  council  of  war  near  Richmond,  452; 

Shields,  Gen.  James,  challenging  Lincoln 
to  fight  a  duel,  124;  candidate  for  re- 
election to  U.  S.  Senate,  150. 151 

Shiloh  (Corinth),  battle  of,  and  proclama- 
tion of  thanksgiving,  346 

Short,  assisting  Lincoln  in  his  bankruptcy, 
97, 100 

Siege  of  Yorktown,  Va.,  249 

Slavery,  opposition  to  the  extension  of, 
134,  188,  146,  154;  Southern  ambition 
of  a  slave-holder's  empire,  211 

Slemmer,  Lieutenant,  in  command  of  Pen- 
sacola  navy-yard  and  forts,  196 

Smith,  Caleb  B.,  Secretary  of  the  Interior, 
215 

Smoot,  lending  Lincoln  money  to  take  him 
to  Vandalia,  102 

South  Carolina,  taking  the  lead  in  seced- 
ing, 192, 194 

Southern  Army,  its  beginning,  218;  in- 
crease, etc.,  270 

South  Mountain,  battle  of,  325 

Sparrow,  Thomas  and  Betsy,  related  to  the 
Lincoln  family,  follow  them  to  Indi- 
ana, 27;  death  of,  29 

Speed,  James,  appointed  Attorney-General, 
442 

Springfield,  Illinois,  State  Capital  removed 
from  Vandalia  to  Springfield,  118 

Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  Secretary  of  "War, 316; 
characteristics,  etc.,  317,  818 

Star  of  the  West,  steamer,  taking  supplies 
to  Fort  Sumter,  fired  upon,  195 

State  rights,  care  taken  not  to  infringe,  239 

Stephens,  Alex.  H.,  friendship  with  Lin- 
coln begun  in  Congress,  137;  Vice- 
President  of  Confederacy  and  confer- 
ence in  Hampton  Roads,  446 

Stewart,  Joseph  F.,  pursuing  Booth  upon 
the  stage.  460 

Stoddard,  William  O.,  Secretary  to  the 
President  to  sign  land-patents,  acting 
as  Assistant  Private  Secretary,  216 

Stone,  Gen.  Charles  P.,  important  services 
at  outset,  206 

Stuart,  John  T.,  first  law-partner  of  Mr. 
Lincoln,  118;  elected  to  Congress,  131; 
prophetic  conversation  with  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, 141 ;  attempt  to  keep  Mr.  Lincoln 
a  conservative,  156 

Suffrage,  negro,  ideas  of  President,  etc., 
367 

Swett,  Leonard,  associate-counsel  with 
Lincoln,  140 

TAYLOR,  JAMES,  Lincoln  employed  by,  as 
boy-of-all-work,  53 


Taylor,  Gen.  Zachary,  President,  135 

Texas,  surrender  of  U.  S.  forts,  etc.,  196 

Thanksgiving  and  prayer,  proclamations 
appointing  days  of,  419,  420 

Thompson,  Col.  Samuel,  commanding  reg- 
iment in  which  Lincoln  served  in  Black- 
hawk  War,  83 

Trent  affair,  capture  of  Mason  and  Slidell 
by  Captain  Wilkes,  352,  354 

Trent  Brothers,  traders  to  whom  Lincoln 
sold  out  and  who  caused  his  bank- 
ruptcy, 94,  96 

Tribune,  New  York,  comment  upon  the 
Cooper  Institute  speech,  180 

Trumbull.  Lyman,  elected  Senator  of  Uni- 
ted States,  152;  course  in  Senate,  353; 
political  soundness  as  an  adviser, 
167 

Turnham,  David,  lent  Lincoln  his  first  law- 
book,  51 

Twelfth  N.Y.Reg't,  arrival  in  Washington, 
etc.,  207 

Twiggs,  General,  treacherous  conduct  in 
Texas,  196 

UNCONDITIONAL  UNION  MEN,  Mass  Conven- 
tion at  Springfield,  HI.,  410 

Union  League,  origin  and  organization  of, 
863;  spread  and  value  of,  371;  first 
grand  council,  405;  second  ditto,  428 

VALLANDIGHAM,  CLEMENT  L.,  course  in 
Congress,  259,  377;  convicted  of  sedi- 
tion by  court-martial,  378,  379;  sent 
across  the  lines,  379,  881 ;  candidate  for 
Governor  of  Ohio  and  defeated,  380;  at 
Chicago  Democratic  Convention,  437 

Vandalia,  former  capital  of  State  of  Illi- 
nois, Lincoln's  first  journey  there, 
102, 104 

Vicksburg,  surrender  of,  393 

Virginia,  State  of,  Act  of  Secession,  228, 
240;  invasion  of,  by  Union  forces,  240, 
241 

Volunteers,  Union,  first  call  for,  issued,  237 

WAR,  acts  of,  by  South,  during  Buchanan's 
Administration,  195,  196 

Washington  City,  disloyal  character  of  its 
population  in  1861,  205 

Weitzel,  Gen.,  first  forces  to  enter  city  of 
Richmond,  454 

Welles,  Gideon,  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
215 

West  Point,  large  number  of  its  graduates 
in  Rebel  army,  218 

West  Virginia,  first  action  towards  separa- 
tion, 276;  admitted  to  the  Union,  374 

Whig  party,  beginning  of,  90,  92, 101;  Con- 
gressional candidates  in  Sangamon 
District,  128;  Presidential  campaign, 
1850, 135;  disintegration,  147;  relics  of, 
in  1860, 184 

Whiteside,  General,  in  command  of  Illinois 
Volunteers  in  the  Blackhawk  War,  83, 
85;  re-enlisted  as  a  private,  88;  second 
to  Shields  in  duel,  124 

Wood,  Fernando,  amnesty  correspondence 
with  the  President,  361 

ZOUAVES,  Ellsworth's,  conveyed  to  Alexan- 
dria by  steamer,  240 


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